North Carolina Conversations Summer

Transcription

2010
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CONVERSATIONS
A
Publication
of
the
North
Ca r o l i n a
Humanities
Council
From the Corner of Elm and Friendly
Shelley Crisp, Executive Director, North Carolina Humanities Council
J ust d own the st reet, a bronze statue commemorates Greensboro author
William Sydney Porter. Better known as O. Henry, the author of stories such as “The Gift
of the Magi” and “The Ransom of Red Chief” was inducted into the North Carolina Literary
Hall of Fame (LHOF) at the first ceremony in 1996. In the one interview O. Henry gave, in
1909, he offered a New York Times reporter this advice:
The cover photo of this issue of North Carolina
Conversations shows a portrait of historical
novelist, journalist, and patron of the literary
arts James Boyd (1888–1944). The painting
hangs in the home his grandfather built, where
Boyd retired, now the Weymouth Center for the
Arts & Humanities in Southern Pines, North
Carolina. See page 10 for the full article.
Portrait of James Boyd, artist unknown.
Photo by Bill Newton, M.D.
N orth c a r ol in a con v er s at i o n s
A biannual magazine published by the
North Carolina Humanities Council
V ol u me 3 , I ss u e 2
SUMMER • FALL 2 0 1 0
North Carolina Conversations (ISSN 1941-3165)
is published biannually by the North Carolina
Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit and
affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
This publication is supported by the NEH’s
“We the People” initiative grant. The Humanities
Council is located at 122 North Elm Street, Suite 601,
Greensboro, North Carolina 27401.
Telephone: (336) 334-5325; fax: (336) 334-5052;
email: [email protected];
web: www.nchumanities.org.
Nort h Ca r o l in a H u m a n i t i e s
C ou n c il S ta ff
Shelley Crisp: Executive Director
Lynn Wright-Kernodle: Associate Executive Director
Genevieve Cole: Associate Director
Harlan Gradin: Associate Director of Programs
Darrell Stover: Program Officer/
Statewide MoMS Coordinator
Jennifer McCollum: Public Relations Officer
Donovan McKnight: Program & Office Administrator
Carolyn Allen: Program Coordinator
Anne Tubaugh: Database & Development Associate
Brianna Bruce: Administrative Assistant
De sig n
Kilpatrick Design
www.kilpatrickdesign.com
ISS N 1 9 4 1 - 3 1 6 5
©2010
Yes, I get dry spells. Sometimes I can’t turn out a thing for three months. When one of
those spells comes on I quit trying to work and go out and see something of life. You
can’t write a story that’s got any life in it by sitting at a writing table and thinking.
You’ve got to get out into the streets, into the crowds, talk with people, and feel the
rush and throb of real life — that’s the stimulant for a story writer....When I first came
to New York I spent a great deal of time knocking around the streets. I did things then
that I wouldn’t think of doing now. I used to walk at all hours of the day and night
along the river fronts, through Hell’s Kitchen, down the Bowery, dropping into all
manner of places, and talking with any one who would hold converse with me. I have
never met any one but what I could learn something from him; he’s had some experiences that I have not had; he sees the world from his own viewpoint.
Imagine what O. Henry might have learned from fellow inductee poet George Moses
Horton, born a slave in Northampton County around 1797. Horton wrote The Hope of
Liberty, the first book published by a black man in the South. He called himself “the
Colored Bard of North Carolina.” The “poetic protests of his status are the first ever written by a slave in America,” states the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, edited by
William S. Powell (LHOF 2008). Or imagine what O. Henry might have heard from short
story writer, poet, and novelist Olive Tilford Dargan (LHOF 2000), who told stories of the
mountain migrants in the Gastonia Mill strike in books like her 1932 novel Call Home the
Heart. Considered one of the best writers out of the southern Appalachians, Dargan lived
to the age of ninety-nine. O. Henry, who conjured his own pseudonym out of the society
pages of the newspaper, might have enjoyed discussing with Dargan why she used the pen
name Fielding Burke.
The North Carolina Humanities Council proudly supports the North Carolina Literary Hall
of Fame in its work to celebrate the state’s inestimable literary heritage — so many writers, so many books, so many genres. Readers need never fear a dry spell when it comes to
the state’s wealth of literature. And as these pages reveal, the Humanities Council offers
opportunities and means for all manner of conversation that would have served O. Henry
well: the Caldwell Lecture in the Humanities and the announcement of the 2010 recipient
of the John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities — author and educator Fred Chappell
(LHOF 2006); an in-depth look at North Carolina’s writing traditions and the Literary Hall of
Fame itself, housed at the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities; new Road Scholars
and Let’s Talk About It library discussion series; the Teachers Institute; Museum on Main
Street; the Pea Island Rescue Men — well, the list goes
on. And as noted in “The 2009 Annual Report to the
People,” the projects and programs are statewide and
multifaceted. Like the “honey blue as classic skies”
found in the poem by Robert Morgan — one of this
year’s inductees into the Literary Hall of Fame — North
Carolina’s people offer stories that are rare and surprising, venerable and proverbial. There is something to
learn from each one.
Statue of O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) in downtown
Greensboro, North Carolina. Sculptor Maria J. Kirby-Smith.
Table of Contents
2
John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities
6
Crossroads
• 2009 Caldwell Lecture in the Humanities
• North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame: “Literature Is North Carolina’s Art”
18
20
Road Scholars
• More Excitement on the Road
Let’s Talk About It
• Great Art and Fresh Thinking
• Picturing America: Places in the Heart
22
The 2009 Annual Report to the People
32
Teachers Institute
• Appalachian Voices — The 2010 Teachers Institute Summer Seminar
• Teachers Institute Alum Collects Oral Histories for Project on Southern Textile Culture
36
• Reflections on New Harmonies
• Journey Stories to Travel North Carolina in 2012
p10 — Crossroads
p21 — Let’s Talk About It
Museum on Main Street
40
From the Field
44
46
The Last Word
49
Events and Deadlines
• Peaceful Heroes
• Poems from Robert R. Morgan
C al d w ell
A w ar d
The 2009 Caldwell Lecture
in the Humanities
“W.E.B. Du Bois, the Humanities, and the Pursuit of Freedom”
Delivered by Reginald F. Hildebrand, October 16, at the Friday
Center for Continuing Education on the Occasion of Honoring
Caldwell Laureate Marsha White Warren
T he hu man ities are explorations of, and meditations on, the
struggles and triumphs of being
human, of being alive, of making a
living, of seeking fulfillment and freedom. They are not trivial or impractical. They plumb our very essence.
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
was an extraordinary champion of
the humanities and a man whose
long life was fully committed to the
pursuit of freedom. Born in Great
Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1868,
his father was largely absent, and so
he was raised by his mother who did
domestic work. After being a stellar student in high school, Du Bois
went on to earn degrees at Fisk and
Harvard, later becoming the first
black person to earn a Ph.D. from
Harvard. He also did graduate work
in Germany.
Had W.E.B. Du Bois only written his
powerful, penetrating, and eloquent
collection of essays called The Souls
of Black Folk, or had he only published his historical magnum opus
Black Reconstruction, if he had just
organized the Niagara Movement
and the Pan African Conferences and
helped found the NAACP, if his sole
accomplishment had been being the
crusading founding editor of the The
Crisis magazine, or if he had done
no more than lay the foundation for
African American Studies as he did
when he was a young professor at
Atlanta University...any one of those
accomplishments would have put Dr.
Du Bois in a class by himself...but
he did all of those things and much
more. Not at all incidentally, he also
published and promoted the work of
young poets, writers, and artists in
the pages of the official journal of the
NAACP, right along with news and
commentary on the struggle for racial
equality. In fact, Du Bois wrote three
novels himself. He also took an interest in photography and wrote meditations on the spirituals. He even
produced a grand historical pageant
called The Star of Ethiopia. Du Bois
did not sometimes pursue freedom,
and then at other times work in the
humanities. In his mind and soul the
humanities and the pursuit of freedom were melded together.
The paramount issue confronting
Du Bois was race. Racism was the
infuriating, multifaceted, obstinate
obstacle that blocked the path to
fulfillment and freedom. It blighted
opportunity and dignity. It threatened hope. The fact is that race still
makes most of us a little crazy, in
benign and monstrous ways. It can
make us noble or little. It evokes
genuine empathy, or syrupy sympathy, or howling, unbridled antipathy.
It causes us to bond with and affirm
our own tribe. It gives us permission
to exclude, exploit, and denigrate
some other. It tries to tell us where
we belong, who we belong with, and
what we can do.
Fortunately, even in high school Du
Bois was immersed in the humanities and he excelled. So, by the time
he graduated and left home, it was
already too late. Too late to limit
his horizons. Too late to make him
believe that the fullness of life was
not his birthright, and much too late
to teach him that he was inferior. By
the time he had completed graduate
study, it was too late to try to make
him understand why black people
should only train their hands and
shortchange their minds. By then it
was too late to instruct him to stay in
his place, because by then he knew
that his place was the whole world,
and during the entire ninety-five
years of his long life journey, nothing
and no one was ever able to convince
him otherwise. He wrote:
I sit with Shakespeare and he
winces not. Across the color line I
move arm in arm with Balzac and
Dumas, where smiling men and
welcoming women glide in gilded
halls...summon Aristotle and
Aurelius and what soul I will, and
they come all graciously, with no
scorn nor condescension. So, wed
with Truth, I dwell above the Veil.
Is this the life you grudge us, O
knightly America?1
1
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk,
eds. David Blight and Robert GoodingWilliams (Boston: Bedford, 1997) 102.
And even before he went to Harvard,
Du Bois had discovered something
else when he was still a student at
Fisk University in Nashville, which
was a defiant oasis of the liberal arts
in a region that prescribed vocational
education for blacks. He discovered
something while he was at Fisk and
during the summers that he spent
teaching the children of black sharecroppers in East Tennessee and living
with their families. He learned then
that the lives, and souls, and experiences of southern black people were
as rich, as meaningful, as complex,
and as significant as those of anyone he would meet at Harvard. In
them he met characters that were
as wondrous, and lives that were as
beautiful and as inspiring, and as
baffling and as disappointing, as any
he would encounter in Europe or in
literature. He knew this to be true,
but he also knew that there were
many people who would find it to be
a startling revelation. So, in The Souls
of Black Folk, he wrote:
Herein the longing of black men
must have respect: the rich and
bitter depth of their experience,
the unknown treasures of their
inner life, the strange renderings
of nature they have seen, may
W.E.B. Du Bois, c. 1911. Courtesy National
Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
give the world new points of view,
and make their loving, living,
and doing, precious to all human
hearts.2 (101)
Du Bois tried to understand and
express the depth of their experience when he wrote Black
Reconstruction. In that book, he
2
Du Bois, Souls 101.
Reginald F. Hildebrand
RE G I N A L D f. HILD EBRA ND is an associate professor of African American Studies and
History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is author of The Times Were
Strange and Stirring: Methodist Preachers and the Crisis of Emancipation (Duke University
Press, 1995). His research focuses on the period of Emancipation and Reconstruction, although
he is currently working on a collection of essays entitled Engaging Blackness: Body, Mind, and
Spirit — The Perspectives of Malcolm X, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Howard Thurman. He has served as
interim director of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History at UNC Chapel
Hill and now serves as chair of the advisory board for the Institute of African American Research
at that university. He is co-chair of the North Carolina Freedom Monument Project and a trustee
of the North Carolina Humanities Council. He has recently been appointed to membership
on the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission and the Advisory Board of the
North Carolina Historical Review. Professor Hildebrand received his B.A. and M.A. from Howard
University and his Ph.D. from Princeton. He makes his home in Durham.
N C C onversations
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I have referred to Du Bois’s best
known work, The Souls of Black Folk.
One of the most beautiful souls he
wrote about in that remarkable book
was a girl named Josie, a child of
desperate poverty who had been one
of his students during the summers
he taught in East Tennessee. He
remembered this about her:
Marsha White Warren, 2009 Caldwell Laureate.
used the methodologies of history,
economics, and political science in
order to craft his path — breaking
analysis of a tumultuous period in
U.S. history. But when he attempted
to describe how Emancipation was
experienced in the souls of the
people who had been slaves...he
became a poet. Professor Du Bois
began his meditation on deliverance from bondage with an allusion
to the beauty of the language of
the Biblical book of Exodus. When
freedom came, he wrote:
The magnificent trumpet tones of
Hebrew Scripture, transmuted and
oddly changed became a strange
new Gospel. All that was Beauty,
all that was Love, all that was
Truth, stood on top of these mad
mornings and sang with the stars.
A great human sob shrieked in the
wind, and tossed its tears upon the
sea...free, free, free.3
3
W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in
America: An Essay Toward a History of the
Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to
Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880
(New York: Atheneum, 1977) 124.
4
•
She had about her a certain fineness, the shadow of an unconscious
moral heroism that would willingly give all to make life broader,
deeper, and fuller for her and
hers....It was a hot morning in July
when the school opened. I trembled
when I heard the patter of little feet
down the dusty road, and saw the
growing row of dark solemn faces
and bright eager eyes facing me.
First came Josie and her brothers
and sisters. The longing to know, to
be a student in the great school at
Nashville hovered like a star above
this child-woman, amid her work
and worry, and she studied doggedly.4 (74, 75)
About a decade later he had a nostalgic desire to return to that community to see what had become of his
students:
...there swept over me a sudden
longing to pass again beyond the
blue hill, to see the homes and the
school of other days, and to learn
how life had gone with my school
children....Josie was dead, and the
gray-haired mother said simply,
“We’ve had a heap of trouble since
you’ve been away.”...How shall we
measure Progress, there where the
dark-faced Josie lies?5 (78, 71)
I believe the story of Josie was seared
into his conscience and his consciousness. I think it always troubled
and motivated him. When he was
4
Du Bois, Souls 74, 75.
5
Du Bois, Souls 78, 81.
North Carolina H u manities Co uncil
engaged in his famous controversy
with Booker T. Washington over
whether black people should be
restricted to vocational training or
be given access to the liberal arts...
that was really a battle over whether
Josie, and others like her, should
have access to the humanities, about
whether her mind should have a
chance to be liberated in the same
way that his own had been. He may
have believed that maybe because of
some of the things he had taught her,
that even in her constant struggles
with drudgery, and poverty, and
racism, there had been moments
when she could stand on top of her
mad mornings and catch glimpses
of all that was Beauty, all that was
Love, all that was Truth; that even in
her hard brief life there surely were
moments when her soul sang with
the stars.
The humanities help
determine whether race
and poverty and other
contentious issues will
make us noble, or little.
Let me be clear. Du Bois was not
an aesthetic escapist detached from
reality. He knew well that the pursuit
of freedom required sustained activism and hard political struggle, but
he also believed that that struggle
should be informed by the humanities, in fact, infused with the humanities, in order to keep it from losing
its meaning and focus. Sometimes he
worried: “We have come to a generation which seeks advance without
ideals — discovery without stars. It
cannot be done.”6
6 W.E.B. Du Bois, “Education and Work,”
The Education of Black People, ed. Herbert
Aptheker (New York: Monthly Review Press,
2001) 106.
I should also underscore that Du Bois
was not opposed to instruction that
genuinely gave people the means to
earn a living, but he thought that
it should not be divorced from the
humanities: “How foolish to ask
what is the best education for one,
or seven, or sixty million souls!”
he snorted. “Shall we teach them
trades, or train them in the liberal
arts?...the final product of our training, must be neither a psychologist,
nor a brick mason, but a man. And
to make men, we must have
ideals, broad, pure and inspiring
ends of living.”7
The primary affliction of our contemporary culture may not be that
it is ugly, or violent, or vulgar, but
that it is shallow. The humanities
can provide no quick fixes and no
guarantees of anything...but they can
deepen and enrich our culture, our
lives, and our politics, so that they
are deep enough for thoughts to take
root, rich enough for ideas and ideals
to grow and flourish, and for broad
principles to take hold and govern
our striving.
The humanities help determine
whether race and poverty and other
contentious issues will make us noble,
or little. And it is the work of Marsha
Warren and John Hope Franklin, the
words of Doris Betts, Jaki Shelton
Green, and Katey Schultz, and the
performances of Joyce Grear that
allow us to catch glimpses of all that
is Beauty, all that is Love, all that is
Truth. W.E.B. Du Bois’s lifelong commitment to the humanities and freedom shows us that even when we are
in the very midst of struggle, the end
of which we cannot see, there will be
moments when we feel our own soul
lift, and we will hear it proclaim, free,
Free, FREE!
C aldw e ll L a u r e at e s
The John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities,
the Humaities Council’s highest honor, has been presented annually
since its inauguration in 1990. Named for its first recipient, the late
Dr. John Tyler Caldwell, former chancellor of North Carolina State
University from 1959–1975 and a founding member of the Humanities
Council, the award pays tribute to individuals whose life and work
illuminate one or more of the multiple dimensions of human life
where the humanities come into play: civic, personal, intellectual,
and moral.
1990 - John Tyler Caldwell†
1991 - John Hope Franklin†
1992 - Doris Waugh Betts
1993 - Samuel Talmadge Ragan†
1994 - Anne Firor Scott
1995 - John Marsden Ehle
1996 - William W. Finlator† 1997 - Charles Bishop Kuralt†
1998 - Dorothy Spruill Redford
1999 - William C. Friday
2000 - Thomas J. Lassiter, Jr.†
2001 - Houston Gwynne (H.G.) Jones
2002 - Reynolds Price
2003 - Wilma Dykeman† & Hugh Morton†
2004 - Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans
2005 - Louis D. Rubin, Jr.
2006 - Benjamin Eagles Fountain, Jr.
2007 - Emily Herring Wilson
2008 - Walt Wolfram
2009 - Marsha White Warren
†
deceased
A N I N V I T A T IO N T O H O N OR T H E
2 0 1 0 C A L D W E L L L A URE A T E
The North Carolina Humanities Council
has chosen author and educator
Fred Chappell of Greensboro as the
recipient of the 2010 John Tyler Caldwell
Award for the Humanities. The award
ceremony is scheduled for Friday,
October 8, 7:00 p.m. at the University
of North Carolina at Greensboro’s
School of Music Recital Hall.
Hephzibah Roskelly, formerly UNCG’s
Linda Carlisle Professor in Women’s
and Gender Studies and vice-chair of
the North Carolina Humanities Council,
will deliver the annual Caldwell Lecture
in the Humanities.
Courtesy UNCG University Relations.
7 Du Bois, Souls 88.
N C C onversations
The Caldwell Award ceremony is free
and open to the public. For details, call
Donovan McKnight at (336) 334-4770
or email [email protected].
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C r o ssr o a d s
North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame:
“Literature Is North Carolina’s Art”
Lorraine Hale Robinson
Lorraine Hale Robinson is the director of the East Carolina University Center
for the Liberal Arts and serves as senior associate editor of the North Carolina
Literary Review.
A hall of fam e creates a kind
of “communion of saints” that transcends ó (kronos — chronological) time, reaching both into the
past and beckoning to the future.
But a hall of fame also possesses a
ó (kairos — seize the moment
transcendency) that vibrates in-themoment to make the connection to
other people and other times and
other places. Halls of fame might preserve an art form, provide a network
for practitioners of an art or science,
and promote life-long learning and
civic participation. As the National
Baseball Hall of Fame says of itself,
these institutions are dedicated to
“preserving history, honoring excellence, [and] connecting generations.”
North Carolina’s Literary Hall of
Fame does all this and more. Sally
Buckner, English professor emeritus
of Peace College in Raleigh, has said
that “literature is North Carolina’s
art.” While performing arts and folk
arts of all sorts comprise the cultural
riches of North Carolina, literature
holds a special place in the consciousness of the Old North State. As
the title to one of Buckner’s books
claims, Our Words, Our Ways are
indeed the same, and readers are in
kairos time when they open a book.
To establish abiding recognition of
the state’s literature, a 1993 joint
resolution of the General Assembly
authorized the creation of North
Carolina’s Literary Hall of Fame. As
its first members were inducted in
1996, the North Carolina Literary
Hall of Fame came into being in the
Boyd Room at the Weymouth Center
for the Arts & Humanities.
Two of the fifteen original inductees
provide clear evidence of the sustaining power of words. From the small
town of Seaboard, North Carolina,
Bernice Kelly Harris published novels
and plays between 1939 and 1971.
During the Depression, through
participation in the WPA Federal
Writers’ Project, Harris collected the
day-to-day life experiences of ordinary Southerners. Her WPA work in
turn gave voice to people like the
family of Janey Jeems (1946) who
might have otherwise been forgotten. Readers can know Southerners
because Harris mined this vein
for the authenticity and detail that
became part of dramas like the Folk
Plays of Eastern North Carolina
(1940) and novels such as Purslane
(1939). Harris’ North Carolina
landscape was rich in its variety, far
exceeding the Southern stereotypes
of her time.
The North Carolina Humanities
Council motto “Many Stories, One
People” implies that a collective
voice enlightens and transforms both
individuals and communities. But
such a process becomes impossible if
those stories are not recorded, including those whose voices have been left
out or marginalized in the conventional historical record. Then readers
can know and understand more —
not only about the people and places
in Harris’ writing, for example — but
also about the risks of marginalization today. Harris’ work teaches an
audience to treasure and celebrate
the particular and the simple and to
find in them transcendent and enduring universals.
Another original inductee — Charles
W. Chesnutt — wrote fiction that
provides a penetrating look at racial
issues. Uncle Julius of The Conjure
Woman (1899) tells fantastic stories of the antebellum South, but
embedded in the tales are questions
about slavery and racial injustice.
Uncle Julius’s and Chesnutt’s questions tantalize and stimulate. In The
Marrow of Tradition (1901), with its
focus on what has been called the
1898 Wilmington race riot, Chesnutt
grapples more directly and openly
with the political and social aspects
of racial inequality. The Marrow of
Tradition provides an historically
vital perspective on this event. Since
journalism of the era was unabashedly biased, reading only non-fiction
accounts creates a deliberately
skewed and woefully incomplete picture. Here, as has been conclusively
demonstrated by recent scholarship,
the fiction is truer than what was
established as fact.
What is reliable and known
about North Carolina and North
Carolinians is the life’s work of
William S. Powell, one of the 2008
inductees into the Hall of Fame.
His encyclopedic knowledge of the
state and its denizens is reflected
in The North Carolina Gazetteer: A
Courtesy North Carolina Collection, University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.
The Writingest State
Shelley Crisp
Attributed to Doris Betts,
a member of the North Carolina
Literary Hall of Fame since 2004 and
a Caldwell Laureate, the observation
that North Carolina is the “writingest
state” is borne out in reams of publications, a centuries-old record of
notable writers, and the practice of
one generation teaching the next the
craft and persistence that render literature true and lasting.
Ed Southern, executive director of
the North Carolina Writers’ Network,
conjures another way to phrase it
when he quotes writer Lee Smith saying: “You can’t spit in North Carolina
without hitting a writer.” There’s more
to the story than can possibly be told
in these pages, for example a list of
literary festivals, a discussion of the
excellent Master of Fine Arts writing
degrees offered across the state, and
the three Let’s Talk About It library
discussion series devoted to North
Carolina authors (see page 20 for
a description of the newest one).
Suffice it to say that the occasion
of the induction ceremony at the
Weymouth Center for the Arts &
Humanities to honor North Carolina’s
writers, both historic and contemporary, offers the perfect moment
to recall how and why a pantheon
of authors came to be part of the
state’s literary story. The North
Carolina Literary Hall of Fame was
founded in 1996 under the leadership of Poet Laureate and Caldwell
Laureate Sam Ragan as a program of
the North Carolina Writers’ Network.
Since 2008, the Network and the
Weymouth Center have collaborated
with the North Carolina Center for the
Book, the North Carolina Humanities
Council, and the North Carolina
Collection of the Wilson Library at
UNC Chapel Hill to produce the induction ceremony, to promote the Hall
of Fame, and to commemorate North
Carolina’s literary heritage. Coming
together in this Crossroads are both
past and present views of the literary
landscape. Lorraine Hale Robinson
assesses the virtues and purpose of
the Hall of Fame while Sally Buckner
and Marsha White Warren chronicle
the genesis of this North Carolina
ritual. For those yearning to search
out more history and more writers,
Bob Anthony offers tools and research
collections. Jan Hensley’s photography
of contemporary writers puts a face on
the literati. If Ed Southern’s gloss on
the North Carolina Writers’ Network
doesn’t motivate a few writers to take
up the pen or return to the keyboard,
the inspiring list of literary magazines
may well do so. And for everyone, the
invitation stands: come to Weymouth
in October and join the celebration.
N C C onversations
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Dictionary of Tar Heel Places (1968);
the monumental Dictionary of
North Carolina Biography (Volumes
1–6, 1979–1996); North Carolina
Through Four Centuries (1989); and
the Encyclopedia of North Carolina
(2006). Through these and other
works, Powell provides an astonishing archive: literary snapshots
or panoramic views of the people
and places that North Carolinians
have shaped and that have in turn
shaped the state’s people. Let any
one of his works, say the Gazetteer,
fall open and be transported: place
names evoke and invoke. Burnt Mill
Creek in Chowan County — the
words produce intriguing images and
questions — what was there, what
happened there? And Powell explains:
“Tradition says watermills were
destroyed by fire in the vicinity....
Last mill there discontinued about
1910, but water still flows down
the mill race.” Or discover how far
away the barrier islands were from
anywhere before bridges and regular
ferry service: about as far as Arabia,
the nickname, Powell tells, that was
“applied about 1860 to the desolate
Outer Banks.”
who held the economic power and
what individuals aspired to beyond
themselves and their locales. Learning
to trust and distrust the recorded word
in search of history, thinking more
deeply and incisively, questioning
what is known and how — all from a
dictionary of place names.
At the other end of the state is Iron
Duff in Haywood County. A delightful spelling error made in faraway
Washington, DC, obscured its origin.
What is an “iron duff?” The community was named for Aaron Duff, and
when a post office was established
there in 1873, a bureaucratic slip
created the mysterious name as it is
now. Through the language one can
hear the local speech and learn how
close the sounds “Aaron” and “iron”
must have been in this transcription
confusion.
Through personal histories and
personal stories, through the intimacy of Momma’s burying quilt in
Lee Smith’s Fair and Tender Ladies,
through characters like the con artist
of Guy Owens’s The Ballad of the
Flim-Flam Man, North Carolina’s
people can trace their roots. Through
the authors named here and the
others who have been celebrated
since the first 1996 induction, North
Carolina’s collective literary voice
gives rise to finding origins and
sharing heritage. As with James
Applewhite’s first line of “Invisible
Fence”: “The years really take us
to ourselves.” Or as Reynolds Price
wrote early in Tongues of Angels:
“Like all real stories, this one starts
with my parents.”
A work like Powell’s Gazetteer
outlines the physical landscape, its
structures, and people’s concepts of
distances. It delineates the original
inhabitants and the ethnic groups
who came to settle here. It reveals
8
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In myriad ways and through countless examples, the North Carolina
Literary Hall of Fame commemorates
the power of words that present who
we are, who we think we are, what
we venerate — that range and totality
of both being and seeming, reflecting the state’s motto “Esse quam
videri.” Be challenged by and revel
in the intricacies of the Fred Chappell
book Shadow Box: Poems “in which
poems-within-poems,” says Chappell,
“(enclosed, inlaid, embedded,
double, nested) present two aspects
of a situation or personality simultaneously. Each whole poem implies a
narrative incomplete without these
perspectives.” So too does the North
Carolina Literary Hall of Fame offer
complementary perspectives on
recognizing kinship and identity, a
closer understanding of one another.
North Carolina H u manities Co uncil
Author Charles W. Chesnutt. Courtesy
Cleveland Public Library Digital Gallery.
In an interview published in the 2007
issue of the North Carolina Literary
Review, 2010 Literary Hall of Fame
inductee Samm-Art Williams comments, “When you begin to lose
your sense of self, you begin to lose
that sense of home....[T]here’s also
always going to be something about
returning home, going home, or the
value of doing so.” That’s what the
North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame
does: it creates a parlor — physical
— thanks to the Boyds — or a state of
mind — thanks to libraries and collections and digital archives — where
we can go home to meet and mingle,
where we can entertain visitors who
eventually share the close bonds of
kinship and friendship with us.
In literature, whether in a remote
settlement in the fastness of the
mountains or in the imagined landscapes of speculative fiction or in the
interior landscapes of curtal sonnets,
we experience the rich polyphony of
our songs of ourselves. A hundred
years hence, present-day authors will
be North Carolina’s literary past, but
as literature is timeless, they and all
the literary hall of famers constitute
a kairos literary present for readers
now and in the future. We don’t need
to click our heels three times and say,
“There’s no place like home.” We can
just open a book.
North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame to Induct Five Writers
On S unday, October 17, 2010,
at a ceremony at the Weymouth
Center for the Arts & Humanities in
Southern Pines, the North Carolina
Literary Hall of Fame will induct five
of the state’s finest writers. The ceremony is free and open to the public.
W.J . C ash worked as a journalist for the Charlotte Observer
and Charlotte News. He also freelanced for magazines such as H.L.
Mencken’s American Mercury.
In 1941 he published his masterpiece,
The Mind of the South.
A llan G ur ganu s ’ first novel,
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells
All, spent eight months on the New
York Times best-seller list, sold more
than two million copies, and has been
translated into twelve languages.
Ro bert Mor gan , poet, novelist,
and biographer, grew up on a Western
North Carolina farm that has been in
the Morgan family since the 1700s.
While studying engineering and
applied mathematics, he took a creative writing course with Guy Owen
and decided to be a writer. Morgan
has published more than twenty-five
books.
Walt er H ines Page, journalist,
publisher, and diplomat, founded the
State Chronicle in Raleigh. He worked
as an editor of both magazines
and books, including the Atlantic
Monthly and Houghton, Mifflin, and
Company. Page established what
became Doubleday publishers.
Samm-A rt Will iams, playwright and screenwriter, has performed in such plays as The First
Breeze of Summer, Eden, and Nevis
Mountain Dew, and wrote Home,
for which he received a Tony Award
nomination.
The mission of the North
Carolina Literary Hall of
Fame is to celebrate and
support North Carolina’s
rich and varied literary
heritage by commemorating its literary leaders
and by encouraging the
continued flourishing
of excellent literature
in this state.
For more information, please
visit www.ncwriters.org/lhof.
T h e N o r th C a r o l i na
L i t e r a r y H all o f Fam e
1996
James Boyd
Charles W. Chesnutt†
Jonathan Daniels†
Inglis Fletcher†
Paul Green†
Bernice Kelly Harris†
O. Henry†
George Moses Horton†
Randall Jarrell†
Gerald W. Johnson†
Guy Owen†
Thad Stem, Jr.†
Richard Walser†
Manly Wade Wellman†
Thomas Wolfe†
†
1997
2000
John Ehle
Harriet Ann Jacobs†
Joseph Mitchell†
Frances Gray Patton†
Samuel T. Ragan†
Louis D. Rubin, Jr.
A.R. Ammons
Helen Bevington†
Olive Tilford Dargan†
Burke Davis†
Robert Ruark†
1998
John Charles McNeill†
Pauli Murray†
Wilma Dykeman†
John Hope Franklin†
Jonathan Williams†
†
2002
LeGette Blythe
Reynolds Price
Christian Reid†
Glen Rounds†
Elizabeth Spencer
†
2004
2 010
Doris Betts
James McGirt†
Thomas Wicker
W.J. Cash†
Allan Gurganus
Robert Morgan
Walter Hines Page†
Samm-Art Williams
2006
Gerald Barrax
Fred Chappell
Elizabeth Daniels Squire†
†
deceased
2008
Lee Smith
William Powell
James Applewhite
9
Weymouth, Writers, and Words
Sally Buckner
Sally Buckner taught for twenty-eight years at Peace College and North Carolina State University while writing and
publishing two collections of poetry and editing two anthologies of North Carolina literature.
It i s a stur dy h o u s e , 106
years old now and still rising tall
among glossy magnolias and tall
pines that lean into the Carolina
wind. Its elegance is understated,
with none of the ostentation one
might expect of a twenty-room
house. Weymouth served the Boyd
family well for seventy years; since
1977, when the Friends of Weymouth
was incorporated, its service has
expanded beyond family to community, its mission marked by the good
taste which distinguishes its architectural design.
In 1904 James Boyd, a mining and
railroad magnate, purchased 1,200
acres in Southern Pines and built a
home. He christened this new estate
“Weymouth,” after a town he had
visited in England. Set amidst a
magnificent stand of virgin long-leaf
pines, it served as a country manor
where his grandson and namesake,
James, often came as a boy to repair
frail health and explore the imposing pine forest and surrounding
countryside.
Later young James went to Princeton
and earned a master’s degree at
Cambridge. In December 1917 he
married Katharine Lamont, and they
honeymooned at Weymouth, which
by then he and his brother Jackson
co-owned. Two months later, he
received his commission to serve
in the Army ambulance service.
Because his efforts as an ambulance
driver during World War I left his
health even more fragile, he returned
to Weymouth for recovery. The following year, Katharine and he moved
to Weymouth permanently and began
redesigning it. They moved part of
10
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Weymouth as seen from the gardens. Photo by David Warren.
the original house across Connecticut
Avenue to become part of Jackson’s
new home; now known as the
Campbell House, it currently houses
the Moore County Arts Council. To
the remaining structure, Katharine
and James added a second story and
two wings, enlarging the Georgianstyle house to 9,000 square feet.
James Boyd, thirty-two years old, left
the management of the family business to his brother while he pursued
the dream that had begun when he
was editor of his high school newspaper: to become a writer. One of the
earliest visitors to the newly-enlarged
home was British novelist and playwright John Galsworthy, who, after
North Carolina H u manities C o uncil
reading Boyd’s stories, encouraged
him to try a novel, then, on a trip to
New York, urged publishers to “keep
an eye on James Boyd.”
In 1925 Scribner’s published Boyd’s
first novel, Drums. It won immediate attention, not only for its story,
but for its realistic portrayal of
colonial North Carolina, the result
of Boyd’s extensive and meticulous
research. Several sources note that
scholars have considered Drums to
be “the best novel written about the
American Revolution...known for
its historical accuracy, psychological
and sociological elements, and high
craftsmanship.”
Boyd went on to write more novels, a
number of short stories, and a collection of poetry. In 1941 he expanded
his career by purchasing and editing
the Southern Pines Pilot. Meanwhile,
his home became a welcome retreat
for many of the best writers of
the day: Thomas Wolfe, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Ernest
Hemingway, John P. Marquand,
Sherwood Anderson, and Paul Green,
as well as his editor, the legendary
Maxwell Perkins, and his illustrator,
N.C. Wyeth. Boyd’s daughter, Nancy
Sokoloff, once recalled that “during
my father’s lifetime, there were no
‘writers’ colonies. Our living room
and that of Paul and Elizabeth Green
served as settings for serious work
and conversations about Southern
writing and its future.”
During World War II, Boyd organized
and served as the National Chairman
of the Free Company of Players,
a group of writers who were concerned that constitutional rights
might be compromised during the
frenzy of wartime. Among the writers joining him in writing plays for
broadcast over national radio were
One of the dogs that welcome visitors to
Weymouth. Photo by David Warren.
Orson Welles, Paul Green, Archibald
MacLeish, and Stephen Vincent Benét.
In 1944 after James Boyd’s untimely
death, Katharine continued living at
Weymouth and publishing The Pilot.
When she died in 1974, she left the
house, remaining land, and forest to
Sandhills Community College, which
in 1977 put the estate on the market.
Fearful that this treasure would be
demolished by developers, two friends
of the Boyds undertook the task of
saving it. Elizabeth Stevenson (Buffie)
Ives organized Friends of Weymouth;
Sam Ragan, then editor of The Pilot,
rallied support from the state of North
Carolina, the Nature Conservancy,
the Sierra Club, the North Carolina
Writers Conference, and the North
Carolina Poetry Society.
Since 1979, the house, surrounded by
twenty-two acres, has flourished as
a full-fledged cultural center. College
groups and the North Carolina Poetry
Society hold meetings and retreats
there. The Great Room (the Boyds’
former living room) and back lawn
host concerts by chamber music
groups and such notable musicians
as Doc Watson and lectures by speakers as varied as social critic Tom
Wolfe and sociologist John Shelton
Reed. There have also been frequent
readings by North Carolina’s writers such as Bland Simpson, Jaki
Shelton Green, Lee Smith, and Shelby
Stephenson, as well as an annual
poetry event, now named the Sam
Ragan Poetry Festival.
In addition to formal programs,
Weymouth has hosted one of former
North Carolina Poet Laureate Sam
Ragan’s favorite projects: residencies offering writers, artists, and
composers stays of up to two weeks
to pursue their art in James Boyd’s
hospitable home. Poet and novelist
Guy Owen was the first writer-inresidence; in 1981, just a few months
before his death, he also gave his last
Portrait of James Boyd, artist unknown. Photo
by Bill Newton, M.D.
public reading at Weymouth.
By 2010 hundreds of writers and
artists have held residencies here.
Many testify that their art has flourished on this site; some even credit
the hovering spirit of James Boyd
and perhaps those of his many literary guests with providing additional
creative impetus.
It is fitting that Weymouth, where
James Boyd and so many other writers have found congenial conditions
for their work, is the site of the North
Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. It is
also fitting that the space set aside
for this distinction is the upstairs
Boyd Room where James did his own
writing, often by dictating to a stenographer as he paced back and forth
taking on the voices of his characters.
Perhaps the spirits of those who are
honored here will join the chorus
of literary masters whose influence
echoes through the halls and across
the grounds of Weymouth.
This essay was first published in the
1996 program for the inaugural North
Carolina Literary Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
N C C onversations
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Summer
•
Fall 2010
•
11
“To Remember, Honor, and Celebrate”
Marsha White Warren
Marsha White Warren, 2009 Caldwell Laureate, is the executive director of The
Paul Green Foundation. She sits on the boards of the Weymouth Center for the
Arts & Humanities and the North Carolina Freedom Monument Project. Warren
collaborated with Sam Ragan in the creation of the North Carolina Literary Hall
of Fame.
T he North C a ro l i na
Li ter ary Hall o f Fame
was founded in 1996 under the
leadership of Sam Ragan, North
Carolina’s first Secretary of Cultural
Resources, the state’s Poet Laureate
from 1982–1996, Caldwell Laureate,
and North Carolina’s literary godfather. The history of the North
Carolina Literary Hall of Fame is the
story too of Sam Ragan who was
responsible for it — a person who
dedicated his life to literature and to
anything that had to do with encouraging writing and reading in the Old
North State.
Conceptualized in 1977 primarily as
programs rather than actual places,
Centers for the Book were established by the Library of Congress
in Washington, DC. In 1992 North
Carolina won approval to be the
twenty-sixth state with a Center for
the Book. Ragan envisioned a standalone Center. He also had the notion
that North Carolina should have what
would be the first state Literary Hall
of Fame, both to be housed in the old
library building in Southern Pines.
A joint resolution to support the
Center was ratified by the General
Assembly’s two houses on Friday,
July 23, 1993. When engineers visited the library to begin the process
of converting it into the Center,
however, their report estimated that
it would cost, conservatively, in the
neighborhood of $250,000 to bring
the aging building up to code. The
deal was off. The Center for the
Book would be located in Raleigh as
12
•
a program of the State Library. The
North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame
would become part of the Weymouth
Center for the Arts & Humanities,
located in James Boyd’s former
study. It was the perfect compromise, of course, albeit the result of a
disappointing one, in that the Center
for the Book and the North Carolina
Literary Hall of Fame would be separate entities. Joining the Department
of Cultural Resources — under the
leadership of then Secretary Betty
Ray McCain — with their support for
the project were the North Carolina
Poetry Society, North Carolina Haiku
Society, the North Carolina Writers
Conference, and the North Carolina
Writers’ Network, the latter also
selected to administer the North
Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. Ragan
worked with a nominating committee
to select the inductees — so difficult
with North Carolina’s many fine writers. For that first induction, fifteen
authors were chosen, all deceased,
as there was a lot of catching up to
do (living and deceased authors have
been inducted in the years since).
As the day for what was to be a
grand affair in the Weymouth gardens approached, Ragan’s health was
failing. He died exactly one week
before the first induction ceremony
of his beloved Literary Hall of Fame.
The next year, Sam Ragan himself
was inducted into the North Carolina
Literary Hall of Fame.
As of October 17, 2010, fifty North
Carolina authors will have been
inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Sam Ragan. Courtesy Sam Ragan Papers,
Southern Historical Collection, University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.
Since 2008, the Network and the
Weymouth Center for the Arts &
Humanities have collaborated with
the North Carolina Center for the
Book, the North Carolina Humanities
Council, and the North Carolina
Collection of the Wilson Library at
the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill to induct authors into
and to commemorate the incredible
literary legacy North Carolinians have
inherited from so many writers. As
Roy Parker, Jr., wrote for the 1996
ceremony:
The North Carolina Literary Hall
of Fame is established as a perpetual opportunity to remember,
honor, and celebrate that heritage.
By marking the contribution of its
literary giants of every generation,
it will support and encourage the
further flourishing of excellent
literature in the state.
And in so doing, it charges every one
of us to honor that legacy for the
next generations.
North Carolina Writers’ Network: Sustaining Writers
for a Quarter of a Century
Ed Southern
Ed Southern is the executive director of the North Carolina Writers’ Network.
Southern’s publications include The Jamestown Adventure, Voices of the
American Revolution in the Carolinas, Sports in the Carolinas, and
Parlous Angels.
A fter the 2 0 08 e c o n o m i c
c ri si s, most people made the rational decision to spend less and save
more. Many people made another
decision that may seem less obviously rational, but was just as logical
in its own way: they started writing.
It’s a natural reaction to stress, once
the initial crisis has passed. People
want to communicate with each
other, to record and share what they
had been through and what they
had learned, to tell stories. So it is
not just coincidence that the North
Carolina Writers’ Network, a statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to helping writers at all levels
of skill and experience, has actually
grown in the last two years. People
join who hope writing will provide
a little extra income, or decide that
now’s a good time to write a novel
or a screenplay or a memoir or even
a poem or a short story that they’ve
daydreamed about for years.
Founded in 1985, the North Carolina
Writers’ Network is one of the largest
statewide organizations of its kind
in the country. Few other states have
anything similar to the Network,
which is open to anyone with an
interest in writing, from anywhere in
North Carolina, or beyond.
Former Network executive director
Marsha White Warren explains that
in a state with such a strong literary heritage that Jonathan Daniels
claimed it to be the wellspring of
the Southern Literary Renaissance,
ensured that there will continue to be
literary abundance. At its inception,
stretched out across the state to
collect information and put it on a
comprehensive database — names
of writers, local writing groups,
bookstores, writing programs — and
to develop a newsletter that would
carry the news to writers behind
mountains who felt isolated, to those
writers out on the coast miles away
from opportunities, and to writers
everywhere in between.
The Network’s signature event, the
annual Fall Conference, gathers writers, editors, and literary agents for a
weekend of readings, panel discussions, and workshops on the craft
and business of writing. Instructors
for the 2010 Fall Conference, to be
held November 5–7 in Charlotte,
include North Carolina Poet Laureate
Cathy Smith Bowers, novelist and
memoirist Judy Goldman, and
keynote speaker Michael Malone.
Georgann Eubanks, author of
Literary Trails of the North Carolina
Mountains and the forthcoming
Literary Trails of the North Carolina
Piedmont, will talk about the state’s
literary heritage and lead a literary
walking tour of downtown Charlotte.
Editors and agents will also be on
hand for the conference’s Manuscript
Mart and Critique Service, through
which registrants can have their
manuscripts reviewed.
Working with schools, libraries,
bookstores and writers themselves,
the Network has provided programs
and opportunities to support and
nourish the state’s writers. According
to its mission statement, the North
Carolina Writers’ Network connects,
promotes, and serves the writers
of this state. The Network provides
education in the craft and business
of writing, opportunities for recognition and critique of literary work,
resources for writers at all stages of
development, support for and advocacy of the literary heritage of North
Carolina, and a community for those
who write.
Complete information about the
Network and the Fall Conference is
available at www.ncwriters.org.
A Statement of Belief
We believe that writing is necessary both for self-expression
and community spirit, that well-written words can connect
people across time and distance, and that the deeply satisfying experiences of writing and reading should be available
to everyone.
N C C onversations
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Fall 2010
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13
North Carolina’s Literary History Discovered
Robert Anthony
Robert (Bob) Anthony is curator of the North Carolina Collection
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library, a position he has held since July 1994.
T he stat e’s l i b r a r i e s and
archives offer excellent resources for
studying the literary history of the
state and individual communities,
holding impressive collections of
works. Academic institutions, seeking
to support more in-depth research,
maintain sizable collections of works
by or about the state’s writers and its
literary history.
Housed in Wilson Library, the
North Carolina Collection (NCC)
at the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill Library has the most
extensive such collection — more
than 300,000 books and pamphlets
related to the state by authorship
or content (www.lib.unc.edu/ncc).
This cornucopia of North Caroliniana
includes tens of thousands of novels
and short story collections, poetry
in both many-paged volumes and
brief chapbooks, autobiographies
and biographies of writers, literary
journals, volumes of literary criticsm,
academic theses and dissertations on
the works of specific authors, and
other books and serial publications
all related to writers connected to the
state. The NCC’s blog — Read North
Carolina Novels (www.lib.unc.edu/
blogs/ncnovels) — offers summaries
of more than six hundred novels of
all types set in North Carolina.
Another valuable resource, the Snow
L. and B.W.C. Roberts Collection
of North Carolina Fiction in the
J.Y Joyner Library at East Carolina
University in Greenville, offers more
than 1,200 fictional works set wholly
or partially in the Tar Heel state.
Titles range from 1720 to the present,
with new materials added regularly.
14
•
Wilson Library, August
1952. Photo by Sam Boone.
Courtesy North Carolina
Collection, University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Library.
The Roberts Collection
is a component of the
Verona Joyner Langford
North Carolina
Collection (www.ecu.
edu/cs-lib/ncc/index.
cfm).
The Special Collections
Department in Atkins Library at
Charlotte also has an important collection of North Caroliniana, holding
copies of many of the past winners of
the annual state book award for juvenile literature that has been presented
since 1953 by the North Carolina
Chapter of the American Association
of University Women (www.specialcollections.uncc.edu).
Other institutions include Tar
Heel literary works in regionally
oriented collections, such as the
W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection
at Belk Library at Appalachian
State University in Boone (www.
library.appstate.edu/appcoll/index.
html) and the Special Collections
Department in Hunter Library at
Western Carolina University in
Cullowhee (www.wcu.edu/1597.asp).
Large repositories, such as the
Rare Books, Manuscripts, and
Special Collections Library at Duke
University in Durham (www.duke.
edu/specialcollections); the Southern
Historical Collection at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
(www.lib.unc.edu/mss/shc/index.
html); and the Special Collections
Department in Joyner Library at East
Carolina University (www.ecu.edu/cslib/spclcoll/index.cfm) offer researchers correspondence, early typescript
drafts of books and articles, communications with publishers, and other
materials produced by or relating to
the work of many of North Carolina’s
most significant authors. Smaller institutions may have archival collections
of notable local writers.
One last resource currently under
construction is a new online literary
map of North Carolina. The interactive
map is a searchable database research
tool. Visit http://library.uncg.edu/
dp/nclitmap to watch the progress
of this collaborative project between
Greensboro and the North Carolina
Center for the Book, a program of
the State Library of North Carolina,
Department of Cultural Resources.
N o r th C a r o l i na ’ s L i t e r a r y M aga z i n e s
Below is a comprehensive, if not complete, list of North Carolina’s literary magazines. Exemplifying this rich tradition is the North
Carolina Literary Review, published since 1992 by the English Department of East Carolina University and the North Carolina Literary
and Historical Association (http://www.history.ncdcr.gov/affiliates/lit-hist/lit-hist.htm). The Association, established in 1900, has for
more than a century fostered the interest of North Carolinians in the state’s literature and history, encouraged productive literary
activity within the state, and assisted in bringing to public attention meritorious works by North Carolina writers.
The North Carolina Literary Review publishes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction by and interviews with North Carolina writers and articles
and essays about North Carolina writers, literature, and literary history and culture. A cross between a scholarly journal and a literary
magazine, the North Carolina Literary Review has won numerous awards and citations, including three from the Council of Editors
of Learned Journals: the Best New Journal award in 1994, the Best Journal Design award in 1999, and the Parnassus Award for
Significant Editorial Achievement in 2007.
The 2010 issue features vibrant cover art by Will Henry Stevens; North Carolina Appalachian literature, with the work of such literary
stars as John Ehle, Robert Morgan, and Kathryn Stripling Byer; poetry by James Applewhite; and an interview with Wilmington
mystery writer Wanda Canada, complemented by Doug Kazantzis’s coastal photography. The Appalachian section of the 2010 issue
also features the 2009 Doris Betts Fiction Prize-winning story.
Appalachian Journal:
A Regional Studies Review
Sandra Ballard, editor
www.appjournal.appstate.edu
Asheville Poetry Review
Keith Flynn, founder and editor
www.ashevillepoetryreview.com
Blindside Publishing
Jon Hodges, publisher and editor
http://blindside.net
Carolina Quarterly
Tessa Joseph, editor
www.unc.edu/depts/cqonline
International Poetry Review
Mark Smith-Soto, editor
www.uncg.edu/rom/IPR/IPR.htm
Iodine Poetry Review
Jonathan K. Rice, editor
www.iodinepoetryjournal.com
Main Street Rag
M. Scott Douglass, managing editor
www.mainstreetrag.com
North Carolina Literary Review
Margaret Bauer, editor
www.nclr.ecu.edu
Obsidian: Literature in the
African Diaspora
Sheila Smith McKoy, managing editor
http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/obsidian
Pembroke Magazine
Shelby Stephenson, editor
www.uncp.edu/pembrokemagazine
Southern Cultures
John Shelton Reed, editor
www.southerncultures.org
The Southern Literary Journal
Fred Hobson and Minrose Gwin, editors
Cold Mountain Review
Betty Miller Conway, editor
www.coldmountain.appstate.edu
www.unc.edu/depts/slj
Crucible
Terrence L. Grimes, editor
www.barton.edu/
SchoolofArts&Sciences/English/
Crucible.htm
www.southernstudies.org
Southern Exposure
Chris Kromm, publisher
The Sun Magazine
Sy Safransky, editor and publisher
www.thesunmagazine.org
Fresh Literary Magazine
Penny Morse, poetry editor
Buffy Queen, nonfiction editor
http://users.rcn.com/freshlit/
Tar River Poetry
Luke Whisnant, editor
www.tarriverpoetry.com
Wild Goose Poetry Review
The Greensboro Review
Jim Clark, editor
www.greensbororeview.org
Scott Owens, editor
www.wildgoosepoetryreview.com
N C C onversations
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15
To Freeze a Moment in Time
Jennifer McCollum
J an Hensley has been photographing contemporary writers of
Southern literature since 1988. After
a chance encounter with Eudora
Welty, Hensley realized that while
established and emerging writers
were being professionally photographed for promotional reasons or
at formal events — such as his own
documentation at the North Carolina
Literary Hall of Fame — no one was
capturing them in quieter moments
“when they were themselves,
natural.”
Over time Hensley’s signature style
evolved — close-ups in black-andwhite, which he processes himself
(“Ansel Adams believed that the
photograph is made half in the camera and half in the darkroom”), still
spots in time that when displayed, he
hopes will stop the passer-by. “If you
can stop people with a photograph,
then you’ve done your job,” he says.
The essential experience is what
Hensley aims for, yet he never shoots
the “whole.” His close-ups always
leave something out, something the
viewer must supply, because, as
Hensley explains, “You do not have
to show the whole because the mind
creates. You do not have to show
the whole to get the feeling — and
you get so much more feeling if
you don’t.”
Hensley has supplied numerous literary publications with photographs,
and has exhibited, among other
places, at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, University
of North Carolina at Greensboro,
and Wake Forest University; but he
primarily pursues photography out
of private passion and purpose. His
extensive collection includes North
Carolina authors Fred Chappell,
Lewis Rubin, Jr., John Hope Franklin,
Robert Morgan, Clyde Edgerton, Lee
Jan Hensley. Photo
by Charles Wagoner.
(L-R) 1998 North Carolina
Literary Hall of Fame
inductees John Hope
Franklin and Wilma
Dykeman, both Caldwell
Laureates, with Jonathan
Williams.
16
•
Smith, Jill McCorkle, Burke Davis,
Mary Jarrell, Wilma Dykeman,
Jonathan Williams, and more. At the
core of Hensley’s artistic and intellectual “hobbies,” as he terms them
(he is a bibliophile, actor, editor,
memoirist, Thomas Wolfe scholar), is
storytelling. Indeed, he will tell you,
“I have a lot of stories. Every picture
I have ever taken has a story.”
“My goal in photographing
writers is not to steal an
image, but to freeze and
share a moment in time.”
“One night I was at the
Regulator bookstore in
Durham, and Reynolds
Price was doing a reading.
When I processed the film,
there was a wonderful
picture of Reynolds in there.
He was very close up and
had this wonderful angelic
expression on his face.
I said to myself, ‘I’ve
hit on a style.’”
“One of the reasons I took
up the camera originally
was that no one was
making candid photographs
of these authors. That
amazed me — that
there was a Lee Smith
coming out and nobody’s
photographing her.”
Reynolds Price, Caldwell Laureate, 2002 Literary Hall of Fame.
Lee Smith, 2008 Literary Hall of Fame.
Louis D. Rubin, Jr., Caldwell Laureate, 1997 Literary Hall
of Fame, with writer Kaye Gibbons.
17
Road
S c h o lars
More Excitement on the Road
The North Carolina Humanities Council welcomes new presenters who bring
fresh offerings to the Road Scholars roster in 2010. Current scholars have
added new programs as well. For complete descriptions and the professional
background of scholars, visit www.nchumanities.org.
New Scholars
Robert Bill inger of Monroe
is a professor of history at Wingate
University. His Road Scholars program draws from his book Nazi
POWs in the Tar Heel State, 1942–
1946 to present photos, maps, and
primary documents related to the
POW program in North Carolina
during World War II. Billinger shows
that the wartime experiences of
POWs and North Carolina troops
demonstrate that enemies are human,
uniforms conceal diversity, and combatants can become life-long friends.
Sally Greene of Chapel Hill is
an independent scholar and adjunct
professor at Elon University Law
School. Her Road Scholars program Judge Thomas Ruffin and the
Shadows of Southern History examines the mid-nineteenth-century chief
justice of North Carolina’s Supreme
Court.
Sc ott Mason, a broadcast journalist at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, brings
The Tar Heel Traveler: Stories from
the Road to Road Scholars for the
first time. He transforms his popular
WRAL feature from small screen to
live storytelling, sharing the stories
behind the stories of his experiences
with the colorful characters, rich
history, and out-of-the-way places
of North Carolina.
C har S olomon of Concord is
an archaeological researcher and
author who has lectured extensively
on the Maya. Her Road Scholars contribution An Introduction to the
Ancient Maya gives an overview of
Maya culture — its art, architecture,
calendar, and writing system — and
discusses how recent archaeological
discoveries are changing our view
of this complex society.
Em ily H erring W i lso n of
Winston-Salem, poet, author, organizer, lecturer, and Caldwell Laureate
offers three original programs to Road
Scholars in 2010. License to Snoop:
The Making of Biography begins
with a brief overview of biography
and weaves a narrative of why and
how Wilson spent a decade researching and writing about Elizabeth
Lawrence, the South’s most celebrated literary garden writer.
Wilson’s Do Not Toss Out Your
Grandmother’s Letters: A Spirited
Defense of Epistolary Voyeurism, or
the Merits of Reading Someone Else’s
Mail, discusses the art of letter writing, with a focus on the letters of
Elizabeth Lawrence.
In The Good Life in Hard Times:
Making Gardens, Friends, and
Books, Wilson shares the story of
how Elizabeth Lawrence learned to
write about what she loved: gardens, friends, and books. Wilson
also explores practical steps toward
becoming a published writer as well
as lessons in overcoming obstacles
and living a good life.
Kenn eth Zogry of Raleigh is
a public and academic historian, a
museum consultant, and author of
two books. He brings three new programs to Road Scholars.
in writing. Salsi, a recognized Jack
scholar, shows how the real Jack is
as interesting as the tales themselves.
In North Carolina Alive with People,
Salsi presents a broad word-picture
of North Carolina based on oral histories she has collected for a decade
from the Outer Banks to the Blue
Ridge Parkway.
Postcard Erich Moretti sent from Camp Sutton, NC. Courtesy of Erich Moretti. From Robert D.
Billinger, Jr., Nazi POWs in the Tar Heel State, 1942–1946.
Zogry’s Black Mountain and Beyond:
The Modernist Movement in North
Carolina, 1930–1970 surveys North
Carolina’s modernist movement
within the context of the era. His
presentation includes images of
numerous Modernist houses and
public buildings, works by awardwinning artists, furniture designs,
and ceramics.
With North Carolina’s Long Civil
Rights Movement, Zogry overviews civil rights efforts during
Reconstruction, the white supremacy
campaign of the 1890s, African
American political organizations
in the 1910s, and labor movements
of the 1930s, as well as the betterknown sit-ins, protests, and struggles
to integrate North Carolina’s public
schools from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Sitting Pretty: A History of the
Furniture Industry in North Carolina,
1700 to the Present follows the history
of the furniture industry in our state
from the early eighteenth century to
the present. Zogry introduces an array
of diverse styles and traditions in the
furniture industry and presents the
work of several prominent furnituremakers.
Returning Scholars With New Programs
Umesh Gu lati of Durham, an
educator and author, has published
numerous articles on religion and
philosophy. His newest Road Scholars
contribution The Culture of India
addresses India’s extended family
structure, marriage customs, the
place of women in Indian society,
the caste system, and temples and
religious symbols.
Mary Wayne Wats o n
of Knightdale is a professor of
Humanities and Social Sciences at
Nash Community College. Her new
program Gerald W. Johnson: Scotland
County’s Pioneering Journalist and
Noted Historian examines Johnson,
author of more than forty books
and founder of UNC Chapel Hill’s
School of Journalism, whose career
spanned nearly seventy-five years.
Watson explains how Johnson’s life
and works were influenced by his
Riverton roots. Often questioning the
status quo, Johnson insisted that “the
closed mind, if closed long enough,
can be opened by nothing short
of dynamite.”
Ly nn Salsi of Greensboro is
an award-winning author, teacher,
playwright, and historian. She brings
two new programs to Road Scholars
this year.
The Jack Tales, North Carolina
Heritage Tales, and North Carolina
Storytelling Traditions explores
Jack, the oldest American legendary
hero, and discusses how the Hicks,
Harmon, and Ward families passed
the Jack tales down for two hundred
years, long before they were recorded
Untitled Study by Claude McKinney, c. 1951.
Courtesy Kenneth Zogry Collection. From
Kenneth Zogry, Black Mountain and Beyond.
How to Sponsor a Road Scholars Program
A n appli catio n to apply for a Road Scholars program can be found at www.nchumanities.org. Questions
about applying for a program or becoming a Road Scholar should be directed to Carolyn Allen at (336) 256-0140 or
[email protected].
19
L e t ’ s Tal k
About It
Great Art and Fresh Thinking
L e t’s Talk A bou t It continues to grow and become an even
more varied program for patrons
of public libraries throughout North
Carolina. The six new series added
in late 2008 have proven so popular
that the Humanities Council is adding again.
The Humanities Council and the
North Carolina Center for the Book
have partnered to offer the new book
series Picturing America: Places in
the Heart, a project of the American
Library Association Public Programs
Office, developed by funding from
the National Endowment for the
Humanities (NEH) and the Institute
for Museum and Library Services.
Places in the Heart incorporates
Picturing America art prints provided
to organizations around the state by
the NEH in its examination of the
“ways in which human experience
is shaped by place.” (See accompanying article.)
In addition to the two Let’s Talk
About It series already in place that
feature North Carolina writers, a third
has been created by staff at the North
Carolina Center for the Book and the
Humanities Council. In the books of
Altered Landscapes: North Carolina’s
Changing World, the characters flee
from or back toward home, looking
for ways to understand or simply to
survive, in changed places wracked
by disorder and loss. They face fundamental questions: how to forgive,
how to judge, what to save, whether
to leave or stay, in a South whose
values, especially those entrenched in
family and tradition, face a new day
of reckoning. Titles include Plant Life
by Pam Duncan, Blood Done Sign My
Name by Tim Tyson, Garden Spells by
Sarah Addison Allen, Salt by Isabel
Zuber, and If You Want Me to Stay
by Michael Parker.
Six existing series have been refreshed
with book changes. The Many Voices
of Latino Literature now includes
Isabel Allende’s Daughter of Fortune
and Of Love and Other Demons by
Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. The series
Mysteries: Clues to Who We Are now
features John Hart’s The Last Child.
Explorations of Faith in Literature
takes a new direction with the added
titles Peace Like a River by Leif
Enger and Traveling Mercies by Anne
Lamott. An American Childhood by
Annie Dillard becomes part of the
series The Journey Inward: Women’s
Autobiography, and Roxanna Slade
by Reynolds Price and On Agate Hill
by Lee Smith become part of Writers
from North Carolina’s Literary Hall of
Fame. Finally, What America Reads
re-invents itself as Myth-Making in
Popular Fiction with Olive Kitteridge
by Elizabeth Strout, The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Cold
Mountain by Charles Frazier.
Cityscape I, Richard Diebenkorn 1963. San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Purchased
with funds from Trustees and friends in memory
of Hector Escobosa, Brayton Wilbur, and J.D.
Zellerbach. © Estate of Richard Diebenkorn.
All of these series will be available
for booking by public libraries in the
fall of 2010. As with series already in
place, the strong additions will stimulate lively conversation and thoughtprovoking discussion.
Let’s Talk About It is a joint project
of the North Carolina Humanities
Council and the North Carolina Center
For the Book, a program of the State
Library of North Carolina, Department
of Cultural Resources.
The Veteran in a New Field, Winslow Homer 1865. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest
of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876–1967), 1967 (67.187.131) Image © 1995 The Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
Picturing America: Places in the Heart
Suzanne Ozment
Suzanne Ozment is executive vice-chancellor for academic affairs and professor of English at the
University of South Carolina at Aiken. An author and editor, she has contributed to the development of the new Let’s Talk About It Picturing America series for public libraries.
T he new Let’ s Talk A b o u t
It Picturing America series Places
in the Heart inspires scholar-led
reading and discussion programs
that explore themes represented by
reproductions of notable American
art in the National Endowment for
the Humanities’ Picturing America
collection.
Images from the Picturing America
collection celebrate scenic as well as
man-made wonders — those carved
by the forces of nature (Thomas
Cole’s View from Mount Holyoke
and Albert Bierstadt’s Looking Down
Yosemite Valley, California) and those
crafted by human ingenuity (Walker
Evans’ photograph of the Brooklyn
Bridge and Joseph Stella’s painting of
the same). Some Picturing America
images suggest ways in which human
experience is shaped by place (N.C.
Wyeth’s romantic cover illustration
for The Last of the Mohicans and
Richard Diebenkorn’s abstract view
of the stamp of the city on the land
in Cityscape I).
The books chosen for Places in the
Heart present a similar message
about the influence of place and are
set in an urban ghetto (John Edgar
Wideman’s Brothers and Keepers),
along one of the great scenic rivers in
North America (Norman Maclean’s A
River Runs Through It), and in small
towns from Colorado (Kent Haruf’s
Plainsong) to Iowa (Marilynne
Robinson’s Gilead) to Maine (Richard
Russo’s Empire Falls). Situated in
richly realized settings, they demonstrate the wonderfully varied
topography of America but also the
constants in human experience, for
these five books are first and last
about relationships. While some of
the characters’ fortunes and troubles
arise from or are connected to where
they live — a dying mill town, a
metropolitan slum — the books are
primarily about strengths and weaknesses, longings, and impulses that
transcend time and place to speak to
the human condition. Places in the
Heart explores the extent to which
individual identity is fashioned not
only by the people with whom one
lives but also by the place(s) where
one lives.
How to Sponsor a Let’s Talk About It Program
A n appli catio n to apply for a Let’s Talk About It book, poetry, or film library discussion series may be found
at www.nchumanities.org. Questions about applying for or planning a program may be directed to Carolyn Allen at
(336) 256-0140 or [email protected].
21
The 2009
A n n ual
Report to
t h e Pe o p le
The 2009 Annual Report to the People
Shelley Crisp, Executive Director
In 2 0 0 9 the North Carolina
Humanities Council offered public
humanities programs throughout
the state, in every district, in as
many counties as could be accommodated, and with many partners in
creative configurations. None of these
programs or partnerships would
have been possible without public
funding or without the generous gifts
of friends and donors. As integral
to success as money and resources
were the staff and trustees who bear
the responsibility for seeing that the
work goes on. With a twenty-threemember volunteer Council, including
five gubernatorial appointees, and
a staff that waxed and waned with
part-time support and the luxury of
having two graduate assistants join
the team, programs unfolded across
52,669 square miles for the citizens of the tenth largest state in the
nation.
Through public humanities programs
such as Road Scholars presentations,
Teachers Institute seminars, Let’s
Talk About It library discussions,
and grant opportunities, the state’s
residents explored both the richness
and the challenges of how their many
stories and voices give definition to
who they are as North Carolinians.
While the resources available for
such rigorous questioning of identity, work, and culture remained
modest at best, leveraging them to
their fullest enabled communities
to explore questions of identity and
place: “Where do we fit in — do
we, in fact, still fit in? Do we still
matter?”
From the mountains to the coast,
program participants uncovered
answers through their humanities
research and projects. As poet Glenis
Redmond said in a presentation
during the grant-funded “Asheville
Wordfest,” “It’s not that I belong
nowhere, I belong everywhere.” In
a performance of Barbara Presnell’s
Piece Work by the Touring Theatre of
North Carolina, one character challenges the audience, “You’ll know/
what I do means something in this
world.”
And to share these discoveries —
that is what makes history live into
the future. Project participant Chris
Hunter wrote of Raising the Story of
Menhaden Fishing, “Some day soon
anyone can come to the museum and
put on earphones and listen to...how
those old men at Beaufort Fisheries
were the best that ever were. ” What
can be even more significant is
sharing those stories on a national
platform as when Marty Richardson
carried word of the Haliwa Indian
School project to the Smithsonian
Institution Museum of the American
Indian.
In 2009 the Humanities Council
offered several new initiatives: NC
Roadwork, which invited communities to explore the history of
a byway or highway; Picturing
America, which supported a National
Endowment for the Humanities
project of learning history through
art; Café Society, which invited new
audiences to learn about the public
humanities; and the groundwork
for Museum on Main Street’s New
Lillium michauxii (Carolina Lily): North Carolina’s official state wildflower, often
overlooked, thrives from the pocosins to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Photo © 2008 Breath O’Spring, Inc.
Harmonies: Celebrating American
Roots Music to tour the state in 2010.
In 2009 the Humanities Council
bade farewell to six stalwart and
committed trustees: Lynn Jones
Ennis, Kathleen Berkeley, Julie
Curd, Tom Lambeth, Joanna Ruth
Marsland, David Routh, and Jeanne
Tannenbaum. Six new additions to
the Council ensured that governance
and accountability would be seamless as Glen Anthony Harris, Tom
Hanchett, Reginald Hildebrand,
Jonathan Howes, Carol Lawrence,
and Hephzibah Roskelly took seats
around the Humanities Council table.
In the mix was a year-long strategic
planning process that found veteran
trustees configuring a strong and
resilient organization for the next five
years.
Given the severe budget constraints
that compelled every nonprofit to
stretch every dollar even further than
usual, it was a daunting charge to
adopt a strategy that challenges the
Humanities Council to serve citizens in all one hundred counties, to
reach out to underserved populations
such as young adults and new North
Carolinians, and to continue to serve
established constituencies.
The Humanities Council, known for
its excellence in providing thoughtful
counsel to communities, teachers,
and scholars, made available both
innovative and longstanding traditional programs; introduced new
curriculum materials for North
Carolina’s educators, particularly
with respect to the textile and
American Indian history of the state.
Thanks to all who supported this
work with time, dollars, thoughtful
commentary, enjoyment and engagement with humanities programs, and
an endless imagination about what
stories need telling and the many
marvelous ways they can be told.
Financial Overview
Listed below are the balance sheet, revenues, and expenses for the fiscal
year ended October 31, 2009. The audited statement for fiscal year 2009
is available upon request. Contact Genevieve Cole, Associate Director/
Director of Administration and Finance, with any questions.
Revenues
Expenses
Public Support
Program Services
National Endowment for
the Humanities (NEH)
$749,310
Grants — We the
People (NEH)
142,150
Program activities
$269,617
Road Scholars
50,601
Teachers Institute
183,674
State
95,000
North Carolina Conversations 52,120
Other gifts and grants*
72,416
Crossroads
2,059
Other Revenue
Interest income
9,837
Investment income (loss)
Total Revenue
(41,863)
$1,110,576
18,511
Literature and Medicine
1,658
We the People Follow-Up
6,739
Museum on Main Street
36,013
Picturing America
300
Linda Flowers Literary Award
Net Assets
Change in net assets
($92,495)
Net assets: beginning of year 808,774
Net Assets: End of Year $716,279
*For a list of 2009 donors, see North Carolina
Annual Fund
2,968
36,104
Regrants — Restricted funds
Regrants — NEH funds
1,000
88,141
Regrants — NC funds
106,750
Conversations Winter • Spring 2010.
Supporting Services
Management and general
255,757
Public Relations
29,624
Fundraising
61,435
Total Expenses
$1,203,071
Support the HUMANITIES Council’s
Work by donating ONLINE
www.nchumanities.org
N C C onversations
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Fall 2010
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Regrants
T he North C a ro l i na Hu man i t i e s Cou ncil awarded four planning grants, twenty-three mini-grants (including
the special projects NC Roadwork, Picturing America, and Café Society), and seventeen large grants to cultural and educational organizations to conduct humanities program in 2009. Funded groups matched the Humanities Council grants with
in-kind and cash contributions. (In-kind amounts are listed below each grant and programs throughout “The Annual Report to
the People.”) The projects supported during this grant period are integral to the Humanities Council’s commitment to advocate
lifelong learning and facilitate the exploration and celebration of the many voices and stories of North Carolina’s cultures
and heritage.
Planning Grants
ASHE County
$739 to Elkland Art Center, Todd
The Land and Us, A Todd Story
$740
Carteret County
$750 to Core Sound Waterfowl
Museum, Harkers Island
A Collaborative Perspective
of the Menhaden Fishing
Industry in Beaufort
$800
duplin County
$300 to Duplin County Chapter Delta Sigma Theta, Inc., Warsaw
Legacies Untold Vol. II —
Histories of Black Schools
of Duplin County
$300
Watauga County
$750 to Appalachian State
University, Boone
NC Nurses Oral History Project
$750
Mini-Grants
Buncombe County
$739 to The Center for Diversity
Education, Asheville
Learning the Lessons of
Root Shock: Building Better
Neighborhoods for Us All $800
$1,200 to Serpent Child Ensemble,
Swannanoa
Beacon Blanket Mill
Documentary Project
$3,103
Durham County
$1,200 to Spirit House Inc, Durham
In the People’s Hands: Arts and
Activism Project
$7,600
$1,200 to Southern Documentary
Fund, Durham
New Kind of Listening — A
Community Screening $4,050
$1,200 to St. Joseph’s Historic
Foundation, Inc, Durham
Durham Acts: Grassroots
Engagements of the 60s
and 70s
$6,490
$633 to Durham Library
Foundation, Durham
The Carolina Brogue:
Film Screening and Talk
with Walt Wolfram
$1,772
Forsyth County
$1,200 to WFU Musuem of
Anthropology, Winston Salem
Korea and America: Intersections
of Culture Humanities
Programming
$19,909
Guilford County
$1,200 to N.C. StoryFest, Inc.,
Greensboro
Bringing Stories to Life:
Workshops for Growth
and Learning
$2,250
$1,154 to Andrews Arts, Greensboro
James Evans Script Development
and Public Reading
$1,865
$1,200 to Weymouth Center for the
Arts & Humanities, Southern Pines
North Carolina’s Extraordinary
Coast Part II
$2,550
$950 to Face to Face Greensboro,
Inc., Greensboro
The Soapbox Salon: A Series of
Community Conversations
$1,700
Pitt county
$1,200 to Farmville Community
Arts Council, Farmville
Presenting Mr. Frederick Douglass
in Farmville, NC
$2,090
$1,200 to UNC Greensboro,
Greensboro
Twenty Years Fall of the Wall
— Germany, A Sustainable
Democracy
$3,800
Wake County
$1,200 to Burning Coal Theatre
Company, Raleigh
Lobby Lectures: 1960
$5,035
$1,200 to UNCG Department
of History, Greensboro
Cone Mill Villages: A Thread
in Greensboro’s Past
$2,328
$1,200 to Saint Augustine’s
College, Raleigh
Countdown to Peace:
Surviving Iraq
$4,367
Madison County
$1,200 to Mars Hill College, Mars Hill
Daoud Hari at Mars Hill $9,105
$1,100 to The Magic of African
Rhythm, Raleigh
An Accounting of Africa
in North Carolina
$1,200
Counties of Grants Awarded
Indicates Multiple Grants in County
24
•
Moore County
$1,200 to Weymouth Center for the
Arts & Humanities, Southern Pines
North Carolina Coastal Series
$2,599
NC Roadwork
Bladen County
$1,200 to Bladen County Public
Library, Elizabethtown
NC Roadwork: The Cape Fear —
Door to Bladen County $2,424
Warren County
$1,750 to Warren County Memorial
Library, Warrenton
NC Roadwork: Norlina —
Evolution of a City
$8,733
Picturing America
Davie County
$300 to Davie County Public
Library, Mocksville
Picturing America
$365
Café Society
Guilford County
$750 to Face to Face Greensboro,
Inc., Greensboro
Café Society: Word of Mouth —
A FRIENDraising Event $1500
Large Grants
Ashe County
$5,000 to Elkland Art Center, Todd
Phase I: Documentary Video “The
Land and Us, A Todd Story,” the
first phase of a documentary film
addressing the changing landscape
in Watauga and Ashe counties. The
project included interviews crossing
the public and private sectors
with an emphasis on community
dialogue.
$15,975
$7,580 to Ashe County Arts
Council, West Jefferson
On the Same Page: A Celebration
of Reading, a literary festival
featuring acclaimed North Carolina
writers Georgann Eubanks, Jill
McCorkle, Pamela Duncan, and
John Shelton Reed. The festival
followed a community-wide bookread and coincides with the major
renovation and expansion of the
Ashe County Public Library.
$9,920
Buncombe County
$10,000 to Mountain Area
Information Network, Asheville
Asheville Wordfest Media
Outreach Project, a third annual
four-day poetry festival in downtown Asheville celebrating diversity,
community, and “citizen journalism,” a source of community
and global journalism complementary to traditional media. Live
webcasts of select readings and
events made the festival accessible
to a broad audience.
$20,536
Carteret County
$9,410 to Core Sound Waterfowl
Museum, Harkers Island
A Collaborative Perspective of
the Menhaden Fishing Industry
to collect fishermen profiles for
an exhibit and publication on the
commercial menhaden fishing
industry, one of the oldest yet
least recognized fishing cultures
in North Carolina.
$9,500
Dare County
$5,000 to University of Illinois/
English Dept., Manteo
Rescue Men: The History of the
Pea Island Lifesavers, a documentary film about the post-Civil
War Outer Banks lifesaving station
manned by an all-black crew and
commanded by keeper Richard
Etheridge, a former slave and Union
Army veteran. All but forgotten,
the Pea Island lifesavers preceded
the U.S. Coast Guard and rescued
hundreds of mariners along the
isolated North Carolina coast
between the years after the Civil
War and the Reconstruction.
$67,644
Haliwa Indian School, Hollister, North Carolina, 1962–63. Photo courtesy Marvin Richardson.
Durham County
$10,000 to Duke University,
Durham
Pauli Murray Project Pilot
Narrative: History and Dialogue
as a Gateway to Reckoning and
Reconciliation, a project inspired
by Durham native Pauli Murray that
promoted discussion and debate in
Durham about the difficult chapters
of its county’s past using history
to seek solutions to contemporary
problems.
$33,183
Forsyth County
$10,011 to Yadkin Riverkeeper,
Inc., Winston Salem
A River of the People, a multimedia humanities project exploring
the complex dynamic between
people and natural resources
through images and interviews on
how the Yadkin River’s natural ebb
and flow has historically affected
the region’s economy, industry,
demographics, environment, and
recreation patterns.
$44,817
$10,000 to NC Folklife Institute,
Durham
Community Folklife
Documentation Institute, a
week-long residential institute for
students nominated statewide to
study with oral historians, folklorists, and videographers and learn
how to preserve North Carolina’s
cultural traditions and regional
traditional arts.
$52,150
Guilford County
$11,683 to Touring Theatre
of North Carolina, Greensboro
Piece Work, a staging and production of poems about Piedmont
textile workers written by Barbara
Presnell. $57,120
$11,168 to The Apprend
Foundation, Durham
Uncovering the Hidden History
of Thomas Day, a free publication
and public symposium that examined the abolitionist ties of Thomas
Day, a free black of mixed race and
slave-owner who became the most
important and largest furniture
maker in North Carolina before the
Civil War.
$11,300
$9,327 to NC Conference of
English Instructors, Greensboro
Diverse Southern Voices:
Gateway to Inspiration,
the Annual Two-Year College
Association’s Southeast Conference
in Greensboro in February 2009.
The wide range of sessions
included literature, composition,
technical writing, humanities,
critical thinking, Southern culture,
storytelling, creative writing, developmental writing and ESL, online
teaching, learning communities
and service learning.
$31,335
Halifax county
$9,693 to Haliwa-Saponi Indian
Tribe, Hollister
Haliwa Indian School
Documentation Phase I, a project
examining the crucial role played
by the Indian School for members
of the Haliwa-Saponi tribe. The
program used the creation and
closing of the school as entry-point
for an examination of the history,
the values, and cultural forces that
shaped the Haliwa-Saponi experience during the last half-century.
$13,136
Orange County
$9,900 to Hidden Voices,
Cedar Grove
Home Is Not One Story included
an instructional workshop series,
photographs by homeless North
Carolinians, and a touring exhibit
encompassing those images, along
with digital audio and public video
presentations which addressed and
broadened conceptions of homeless
children, teens, and adults, whether
displaced by economic factors,
domestic abuse or mental health
issues.
$59,600
Mecklenburg County
$5,000 to Charlotte Symphony
Orchestra, Charlotte
Daybreak of Freedom, a
multi-media component to the
annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Memorial Concert. The presentation
combined historical interviews and
images from Charlotte’s Civil Rights
Movement with text from various
speeches of Dr. King’s. $26,276
$10,000 to UNC Chapel Hill American Indian Studies,
Chapel Hill
Implementation of a K–12
Curriculum on North Carolina
Indian, an interdisciplinary workshop for public school teachers
from Title VII Indian Education
programs. Teachers utilized lesson
plans from the recently published
Curriculum Enrichment Project:
North Carolina American Indian
Studies.
$18,714
$6,500 to Tomorrow’s
R.O.A.D., Charlotte
Connections Underground
Railroad Project, nine historianguided sessions of intensive
humanities study and leadership development for a diverse
group of teenagers nominated
by community organizations.
The teenagers delivered public
presentations, conducted a service
project, attended a learning camp,
and helped design a website that
synthesized the project in their own
words and images.
$93,775
N C C onversations
•
Summer
Pitt County
$9,595 to End of Life Care Coalition
of Eastern NC, Greenville
Facing the End of Life through
Humanities, presentations about
aging and the process of dying
and exhibits by fabric and thread
artist Deidre Scherer, whose work
“focuses on the universal issues
of age and mortality.”
$15,300
•
Fall 2010
•
25
The Teachers Institute
“The seminar experience has heightened my resolve to remain in the classroom to help my students achieve
and become all that they desire.” ~ 2009 Teachers Institute Participant
The T each ers Inst i t u t e is a free professional
development program for K–12 North Carolina public school
educators. Weekend and week-long seminars are contentrich, intellectually stimulating, and interdisciplinary. These
scholar-led seminars create the rigorous environment found
in the best graduate education.
In 2009 the Teachers Institute offered three seminars for
the state’s educators. The first, a weekend seminar in May,
was held in Charlotte at the Levine Museum of the New
South. The lead scholar for North Carolina Textile History:
Stories of Mill Workers was Dr. Roxanne Newton, Director
of the Humanities and Fine Arts Division at Mitchell
Community College.
The second seminar, The Culture of Textiles in North
Carolina: Past, Present, and Future, was held in Chapel
Hill June 21–27. Lead scholars were Dr. James L. Leloudis,
Associate Dean for Honors and Director of the James M.
Johnson Center for Undergraduate Excellence, UNC Chapel
Hill; Dr. Rachel Willis, the Bowman and Gordon Gray
Distinguished Associate Professor of American Studies and
Adjunct Professor of Economics, UNC Chapel Hill; and Dr.
Pamela Grundy of Charlotte, an independent historian and
editor of a series of texts about North Carolina history.
A third seminar was held in Wilmington in October. Dr.
Melton McLaurin, Professor Emeritus of History and
former Associate Chancellor of Academic Affairs at UNC
Wilmington, served as lead scholar for The Segregated
Teachers Institute Participant Counties
Teachers Institute Sites
26
•
South through Autobiography. Eighty-two educators
attended the three 2009 TI seminars.
During the spring semester, the Teachers Institute sponsored the participation of eleven teachers in the course
“The South in Black and White,” provided through the
Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Dr.
Tim Tyson was the professor.
Participants in the May seminar crafted a quilt with squares representing an aspect of their learning experience. One teacher observed that
together participants and presenters “were able to tie seemingly disconnected bits and pieces” into a whole to “see textiles ‘woven’ into the
fabric of our lives.”
T h e L e t ’ s Talk A b o u t It library discussion series brings together scholars and community
members to explore how selected books, films, and poetry illuminate a particular theme. The new
series added in 2008 proved extremely popular in the 2009 sessions of Let’s Talk About It. In the spring
session, 50% of the participating libraries used one of the new options. In the fall session, 70% chose
one of the new series.
Let’s Talk About It is a joint project of the North Carolina Humanities Council and the North Carolina
Center for the Book, a program of the State Library of North Carolina/Department of Cultural Resources
and an affiliate of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.
Burke County
$1,000 to Burke County Public
Library, Morganton
The African American Experience:
Looking Forward, Looking Back
$1,635
Cabarrus County
$1,000 to Cabarrus County Public
Library, Concord
Destruction and Redemption:
Images of Romantic Love $2,649
Carteret County
$1,000 to Carteret County Public
Library, Beaufort
Divergent Cultures: The Middle
East in Literature
$4,722
Caswell county
$1,000 to Caswell Friends of the
Library, Yanceyville
Looking At: Jazz, America’s
Art Form
$1,006
Craven County
$1,000 to New Bern Craven County
Public Library, New Bern
America’s Greatest Conflict:
Novels of the Civil War
$2,819
Davidson County
$1,000 to Friends of the Lexington
Library, Lexington
Affirming Aging
$2,700
Madison county
$1,000 to Friends of Madison County
Library, Marshall
Affirming Aging
$1,468
Onslow county
$1,000 to Sneads Ferry Library,
Sneads Ferry
Not for Children Only
$1,035
Davie County
$1,000 to Davie County Public
Library, Mocksville
Discovering the Literary South:
The Louis D. Rubin, Jr., Series
$4,170
Martin County
$1,000 to Martin Memorial Library,
Williamston
What America Reads: Myth-Making
in Popular Fiction
$1,433
$1000 to Onslow County Public
Library, Jacksonville
Not for Children Only
$2366
Henderson county
$1,000 to Henderson County Public
Library, Hendersonville
East in Literature
$1,637
Hyde County
$1,000 to Ocracoke Library,
Ocracoke
Destruction and Redemption:
Images of Romantic Love $1,641
Iredell County
$1,000 to Iredell Friends of the
Library, Statesville
Faith Differences and
Different Faiths
$2,911
$1,000 to Martin Memorial Library,
Williamston
Faith Differences and
Different Faiths
$1,425
McDowell County
$1,000 to McDowell County Friends
of the Library, Marion
$1,150
Nash County
$1,000 to Braswell Memorial Library,
Rocky Mount
$1,650
Orange County
$1,000 to Chapel Hill Public Library,
Chapel Hill
Tar Heel Fiction: A Second Look
$1,300
Pamlico County
$1,000 to Pamlico County Library,
Bayboro
America’s Greatest Conflict:
Novels of the Civil War
$1,609
Person County
$1,000 to Friends of Person County
Public Library, Roxboro
Mad Women in The Attic $2,150
Pitt County
$1,000 to Sheppard Memorial
Library, Greenville
From Rosie to Roosevelt: A Film
History of Americans in World War
II — “The American People”
$2,017
Richmond County
$1,000 to Friends of Thomas Leath
Memorial Library, Rockingham
Law and Literature: The Eva R.
Rubin Series
$1,000
Union County
$1,000 to Union County Public
Library, Monroe
Journeys Across Time & Place:
Mapping Southern Identities
$1,190
Vance County
$1,000 to Friends of the Perry
Library, Henderson
$2,250
$1,000 to New Bern Craven County
Public Library, New Bern
East in Literature
$3,475
Let’s Talk About It Counties
Multiple Let’s Talk About It Programs in County
27
Road Scholars
T he North ca ro l i na h u man i t i e s cou ncil has been offering speakers, free of charge, to public audiences
since 1990. Road Scholars provides stimulating and informative programs to nonprofit organizations in cities, towns, and
rural communities across the state.
The Road Scholars speakers bureau continues to gain in recognition and popularity across the state. Groups in forty-six counties hosted at least one Road Scholars program in 2009. Seventy-five percent of the scholars participating in the program gave
at least one presentation during the year. These scholars crisscrossed North Carolina offering a diversity of quality public
humanities programs.
Alamance County
$250 to Alamance Community
College, Graham
David Cecelski: People That
Do Right — The Civil Rights
Movement in North Carolina
$825
$250 to Alamance Community
College, Graham
Billy Stevens: Sincere
Forms of Flattery — Blacks,
Whites, and American
Popular Music
$525
$250 to NC Library
Association, Elon
Nathan Ross Freeman:
Characterization —
Exploring Layers of Self
$1367
Allegheny County
$250 to Allegheny County
Public Library, Sparta
Lynn Salsi: North Carolina
Alive
$294
Ashe County
$250 to Native American
Studies Group, West Jefferson
William Anderson: Cultural
Impacts — Native
Americans in America
and Europeans among the
Cherokee
$250
$250 to Ashe County Friends
of the Library, West Jefferson
Anne Whisnant: Grandfather
Mountain & The Blue Ridge
Parkway — The Untold
Story
$550
Lynn Salsi: Appalachian
Story Quilt
$300
Bernie Harberts: Hoofing
it by Mule Across North
Carolina
$450
Avery county
$250 to Avery County Arts
Council, Banner Elk
William Anderson: Cherokee
Removal
$1216
Buncombe county
$250 to Pack Memorial
Library, Asheville
Story Quilt
$800
Cabarrus County
$250 to Friends of Kannapolis
Library, Kannapolis
Alive
$1251
$250 to Bogue Banks Public
Library, Pine Knoll Shores
Kevin Duffus: War Zone —
WWII off North Carolina’s
Outer Banks
$5800
$250 to Eastern Cabarrus
Historical Society, Mount
Pleasant
Sylvia Payne: We Have
Stories to Tell — Family and
Personal Stories
$475
$250 to Osher Lifelong
Learning, Pine Knoll Shores
Jim Bunch: North Carolina’s
U-Boats: u-85, u-701, u-352
$1150
Caldwell County
$250 to Caldwell County
Friends of the Library, Lenoir
Mary Ellis Gibson: Still
Cookin’ — Food and
Memory in Southern
Literature
$375
Carteret County
$250 to Carteret Writers,
Morehead City
Ben Casey: Life along the
Waterways — Exploring
North Carolina Rivers
$635
$250 to Dry Ridge Historical
Museum, Weaverville
Betty Smith: Jane Hicks
Gentry
$275
Road Scholars Counties
Multiple Road Scholars in County
28
•
$250 to Webb Memorial
Public Library, Morehead City
Jim Bunch: North Carolina’s
U-Boats: u-85, u-701, u-352
$640
$250 to Carteret Writers,
Morehead City
Joseph Bathanti:
Demystifying Poetry $1335
Catawba county
$250 to Hickory Museum of
Art, Hickory
Vivian Jacobson: Chagall &
the Women in His Life $250
Road Scholar Lynn Salsi brings out-of-the-way
North Carolina places to life. Photo by Lynn Salsi.
Chatham County
$250 to Friends of
Pittsboro Memorial Library,
Pittsboro Marjorie Hudson:
George Moses Horton —
Uncovering and Celebrating
Lost Black History $3100
Cherokee County
$250 to Friends of Murphy
Public Library, Murphy
Anne Rogers: Cherokee
Ceremonial Practices in the
1800s
$600
Cleveland county
$250 to Mauney Memorial
Library, Kings Mountain
Kevin Duffus: The Last Days
of Black Beard the Pirate
$600
$250 to Mauney Memorial
Library, Kings Mountain
Randell Jones: Scoundrels,
Rogues, and Heroes of the
Old North State
$250
Columbus County
$250 to Lake Waccamaw
Depot Museum, Lake
Waccamaw
William McNeill: Outside the
Frame — The Astonishing
Life of Whistler’s Mother
$650
Craven County
$250 to New Bern Historical
Society, New Bern
David LaVere: America
Without Indians — An
Imaginary Journey $700
Cumberland
County
$250 to St. Patrick Catholic
Church, Fayetteville
Stories to Tell — Family
and Personal Stories
$1150
$250 to Currituck County
Public Library, Barco
William Adam: Discover the
Gilded Age
$1125
$250 to Corolla Branch
Library, Corolla
William Adam: Discover the
Gilded Age
$900
Dare County
$250 to Town of Duck, Duck
Marjorie Hudson: Virginia
Dare in Fact & Fancy $900
Davidson County
$250 to Small Town Area
Revitalization, Denton
Tom Magnuson: Trading
Paths and England’s
Contact Era in North
Carolina
$525
$250 to Piedmont Crossing
Retirement Center,
Thomasville
John Beck: Southern
Cooking High and Low$300
$250 to Davidson
Genealogical Society,
Lexington
Tom Magnuson: North
Carolina’s Oldest Roads
$825
Retirement Center,
Thomasville
Roxanne Newton: Hard
Times in the Mill —
Working Lives Past and
Present
$450
Retirement Center,
Thomasville
Outer Banks
$750
Davie County
$250 to Bermuda Village
Retirement Community,
Bermuda Run
Joseph Bathanti: The Turf
of Hankering
$1100
Durham County
$250 to Daughters of the
American Revolution, Durham
Tom Magnuson: Trading
Paths and England’s
Contact Era in North
Carolina
$300
$250 to Southern Humanities
Council, Durham
Joseph Bathanti: The Turf
of Hankering
$2050
Forsyth County
$250 to Forsyth Gem and
Mineral Club, Winston Salem
Anne Whisnant: Super-
Scenic Motorway — The
Blue Ridge Parkway Nobody
Knows
$400
$250 to Historic Bethabara
Park, Winston Salem
William Anderson: Cultural
Impacts — Native
Americans in America
and Europeans among the
Cherokee
$564
$250 to Forsyth County Public
Library, Winston Salem
Story Quilt
$400
Gaston County
$250 to Gaston County
Museum of Art & History,
Dallas
Roxanne Newton: Blood
on the Cloth — Ella May
Wiggins and the 1929
Gastonia Strike
$1750
The 2009
L i nda Fl o w e r s
$250 to Gaston County Public
Library, Gastonia
Old North State
$702
L i t e r a ry
A wa r d
Library, Gastonia
Emily Seelbinder: Sleeping
Single in a Double Bed
$402
Katey Schultz, the 2009 Linda Flowers
Literary Award recipient, is an M.F.A.
graduate in Writing from Pacific
University in Oregon. Schultz is the
author of Lost Crossings: A Contemplative
Look at Western North Carolina’s Historic
Swinging Footbridges and editor of two
fiction anthologies, Dots on a Map and
Beneath the Unknown Bones. Her fiction
and nonfiction
appeared
in Swink,
Captionhave
for this
photo will
Driftwood,
Perigee, Oregon Quarterly,
go here.
Cadillac Cicatrix, The Nature Conservancy
Newsletter, Sugar Mule, Writers’ Dojo, and
more. Her essays about art and the creative process appear regularly in national
magazines, and she edits in various
capacities for Trachodon, Silk Road, Main
Street Rag, and Memoir (and).
$250 to Cumberland County
Public Library, Fayetteville
Stan Knick: Lumbee Indian
History and Culture — Past
and Present
$675
Currituck County
$250 to Currituck Historical
Society, Barco
$962
Margaret Hoffman:
Blackbeard! The Man
Behind the Legend $675
Schultz’s “Amplitude” was featured in
the Winter • Spring issue of North Carolina
Conversations. For her award-winning
entry, she received a $500 cash prize and
a writer’s residency at the Weymouth
Center for the Arts & Humanities.
$250 to Corolla Branch
Library, Corolla
Margaret Hoffman:
Blackbeard! The Man
$250 to Currituck Beach
Lighthouse, Corolla
Sylvia Payne: Storytelling
— Passing It on Through
Oral Tradition
$250
Road Scholar Bernie Harberts and Woody “hoof it” across North Carolina.
Courtesy http://riverearth.com/.
N C C onversations
•
Summer
•
Fall 2010
•
29
Nash County
$250 to Unitarian Universalist
Fellowship of Rocky Mount,
Rocky Mount
Umesh Gulati: Democratic
Reconstructions of Religion
& World Peace
$725
New Hanover
County
$250 to Wilmington Downtown
Rotary, Wilmington
Billy Stevens: Discovering
Elvis — Tracing Traditions
to the Soul of the King
$250
Road Scholar Sharon Raynor’s “Breaking the Silence” gives voice to Vietnam veterans of North
Carolina, including that of her father, pictured here during his tour of duty.
Library, Gastonia
Memory in Southern
Literature
$802
$250 to Gaston County
Museum of Art & History,
Dallas
Joe Mills: North Carolina
in a Bottle — An Overview
of North Carolina Wine
Industry and Wineries
$1650
Guilford County
$250 to GTCC
Internationalizing the
Curriculum Committee,
Jamestown
Fasih Ahmed: Interactions
of Islam with Political,
Social, and Economic
Systems
$925
$250 to Jamestown Public
Library, Jamestown
Karen Kilcup: American
Women’s Humor
$387
$250 to Joyful Hearts Senior
Club, Julian
Oral Tradition
$898
$250 to Beth David
Synagogue, Greensboro
Vivian Jacobson: The
Jerusalem Windows $250
$250 to First Lutheran
Church, Greensboro
Alive
$250
30
•
$250 to First Lutheran
Church, Greensboro
Oral Tradition
$400
Henderson County
$250 to National League
of American Pen Women,
Hendersonville
Gwen Ashburn: A Confluence
of Remarkable Women$400
$250 to Agudas Israel
Congregation, Hendersonville
Popular Music
$770
$250 to Sisterhood of
Agudas Israel Congregation,
Hendersonville
Stories to Tell — Family and
Personal Stories
$550
$250 to Sisterhood of
Agudas Israel Congregation,
Hendersonville
Billy Stevens: Discovering
Elvis — Tracing Traditions
to the Soul of the King
$475
Johnston County
$250 to Johnston County
Genealogical & Historical
Society, Smithfield
$250 to Johnston County Arts
Council, Clayton
Sherry Austin: The
Audacious and the Fantastic
— The Art of Southern
Gothic
$950
$250 to Johnston County Arts
Council, Smithfield
Karl Campbell: “The North
Carolina Way” — Civil
Rights and Wrongs in the
20th Century
$1450
McDowell County
$250 to Marion Davis Library,
Old Fort
Old North State
$838
Lincoln County
$250 to Florence Soule
Shanklin Memorial Library,
Denver
Fasih Ahmed: U.S. Foreign
Policy Implications in
Islamic Countries
$550
$250 to Blue Ridge Lifelong
Learning, Little Switzerland
Betty Smith: Jane Hicks
Gentry
$400
$250 to Florence Soule
Shanklin Memorial Library,
Denver
Joseph Bathanti:
Autobiography — Writing
about Yourself
$595
Madison County
$250 to Madison County
Public Library, Marshall
Anne Whisnant: Grandfather
Mountain & The Blue Ridge
Parkway — The Untold
Story
$1216
$250 to Madison County
Public Library, Marshall
Charlotte Ross: Long
Legacies — Remarkable
Survivals in Appalachian
Folklife
$916
$250 to Ramsey Center for
Regional Studies, Mars Hill
Charlotte Ross: The Social
Function of Narrative in
Appalachian Society
$1025
$250 to Blue Ridge Lifelong
Learning, Little Switzerland
Walter Ziffer: Witness to the
Holocaust
$400
Moore County
$250 to Sandhills Community
College, Pinehurst
Outer Banks
$475
College, Pinehurst
Joe Cole: Knowing the
Self — Philosophy and
Autobiographical Writing
$425
College, Pinehurst
Lynn Salsi: Crystal Coast
$475
College, Pinehurst
Mary Wayne Watson:
John Charles McNeill —
Poet Laureate’s Home
Songs
$1075
College, Pinehurst
Umesh Gulati: Mahatma
Gandhi — The Man and the
Message
$925
$250 to Federal Point Historic
Preservation Society, Carolina
Beach
Lucinda MacKethan: Gone
with the Wind? Never.
$1263
Orange County
$250 to Orange County Public
Library, Hillsborough
Popular Music
$610
$250 to UNC General Alumni
Association, Chapel Hill
Mary Wayne Watson: John
Charles McNeill — Poet
Laureate’s Home Songs
$1320
$250 to Carol Woods
Chapel Hill
William McNeill: Tango!
The Song! The Dance! The
Obsession!
$575
$250 to Friends of St. Mary’s
Chapel, Hillsborough
Tom Magnuson: North
Carolina’s Oldest Roads
$985
$250 to Davie Poplar Chapter
DAR, Chapel Hill
Margaret Hoffman: The
Last Days of Blackbeard the
Pirate
$275
Pasquotank County
$250 to Pasquotank-Camden
Library, Elizabeth City
Katherine Mellen Charron:
William Henry Singleton’s
Recollections of My Slavery
Days
$2891
Pender County
$250 to Historical Society of
Topsail Island, Topsail Beach
$550
Ben Casey: Life Along the
Waterways — Exploring
North Carolina Rivers $695
Stan Knick: Lumbee Indian
History and Cluture — Past
and Present
$700
Richmond County
$250 to Richmond County
Schools, Hamlet
Vivian Jacobson: Chagall &
the Women in his Life $325
Rockingham County
$250 to Rockingham
Community College,
Wentworth
Emily Seelbinder: The
Harlem Renaissance —
An Explosion of African
American Creativity $405
Rowan County
$250 to NC Transportation
Museum, Spencer
Outer Banks
$950
Museum, Spencer
Bernie Harberts: Hoofing
it by Mule Across North
Carolina
$1350
Museum, Spencer
Anne Whisnant: SuperScenic Motorway — The
Blue Ridge Parkway Nobody
Knows
$1375
Rutherford County
$250 to Rutherford
County Historical Society,
Rutherfordton
Randell Jones: In the
Footsteps of Daniel Boone
$500
Surry County
$250 to Elkin Public Library,
Elkin
Anne Rogers: Native
Americans & Their Use of
the Environment
$810
Transylvania
County
$250 to Brevard College,
Brevard
Gwen Ashburn: A Confluence
of Remarkable Women
$925
$250 to Transylvania Heritage
Coalition, Brevard
Charlotte Ross: Long
Legacies — Remarkable
Survivals in Appalachian
Folklife
$650
Tyrrell County
$250 to Tyrrell County
Society, Columbia
Stories to Tell — Family
and Personal Stories
$1155
Society, Columbia
Kevin Duffus: How
Shipwrecks Shaped the
Destiny of the Outer Banks
$1025
Society, Columbia
Alive
$975
Union County
$250 to Friends of the Union
County Public Library, Monroe
$965
$250 to Union County Public
Library, Monroe
Billy Stevens: Samson &
Delilah — From Pulpits to
Pop Stars
$572
$250 to Edwards Memorial
Library, Marshville
Booker Anthony: The
African American Church in
the Works of Ernest Gaines
$1300
Wake County
$250 to Wake County
Historical Society, Raleigh
Old North State
$415
$250 to Parkview Manor
Senior Housing Center,
Raleigh
EJ Stewart: Writing in the
Familiar
$250
$250 to Raleigh Community &
Safety Club, Raleigh
EJ Stewart: Writing in the
Familiar
$250
$250 to Saints & Sinners
Seniors Group, Raleigh
Kevin Duffus: How
Shipwrecks Shaped the
Destiny of the Outer Banks
$250
$250 to Raleigh Civitan Club,
Raleigh
$1125
$250 to Raleigh Golden K
Kiwanis Club, Raleigh
EJ Stewart: Forgotten Rural
Black Women
$250
$250 to North Regional
Library, Raleigh
Story Quilt
$800
$250 to Whitaker Glen
Raleigh
$1190
$250 to City of Raleigh Foster
Grandparents Program,
Raleigh
EJ Stewart: Forgotten Rural
Black Women
$250
Library, Raleigh
Margaret Hoffman:
Blackbeard! The Man
Raleigh
Even Exchange Dance
Company: The Art of
Interpretation
$250
$250 to Holly Springs Branch
Library, Holly Springs
Lenard Moore: Cultural
Writing — Using Music and
Visual Art in Poetry $425
$250 to Saints & Sinners
Seniors Group, Raleigh
Story Quilt
$250
Library, Raleigh
Andy Angyal: Green
Design & the Quest for
Sustainability
$630
$250 to Cary Senior
Center, Cary
David LaVere: What
Happened to the Lost
Colony?
$450
$250 to Cameron Village
Library, Raleigh
Memory in Southern
Literature
$675
Raleigh
Forms of Flattery —
Blacks, Whites, and
American Popular Music
$268
$250 to NC Museum of
History, Raleigh
Sharon Raynor: Breaking
the Silence & Healing the
Soul — The Oral Histories
of Vietnam War Veterans of
North Carolina
$1100
Photo by Gerret Warner.
The 2009
Watauga County
$250 to Watauga County
Public Library, Boone
Doug Butler: Tiebele to
Timbuktu — West Africa’s
Tribal Cultures
$275
J o hn T y l e r
C aldw e ll
A wa r d f o r th e
$250 to Watauga Historical
Society, Boone
Randell Jones: In the
Footsteps of Daniel Boone
$650
H u man i t i e s
Public humanities advocate Marsha White
Warren is the North Carolina Humanities
Council’s 2009 Caldwell Laureate. She is
the executive director of The Paul Green
Foundation and sits on the boards of the
Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities
and the North Carolina Freedom Project. She
was executive director of the North Carolina
Writers’ Network from 1987 to 1996. Warren
collaborated with Sam Ragan in the creation
of North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame.
$250 to Watauga County
Public Library, Boone
Doug Butler: The Last
Buddhist Kingdom
$250
$250 to Osher Lifelong
Learning, Blowing Rock
William McNeill: Tango!
The Song! The Dance! The
Obsession!
$750
Wayne County
$250 to Mount Olive College,
Mount Olive
Margaret Hoffman:
Blackbeard! The Man
The John Tyler Caldwell Award honors
Warren’s lifelong advocacy of the humanities in North Carolina. Author Doris Betts
presented the award to Warren in October
2009, and Dr. Reginald Hildebrand delivered the annual Caldwell Lecture in the
Humanities, reprinted in this issue of North
Carolina Conversations.
$250 to Wayne County
Community College,
Goldsboro
Jaki Shelton Green:
Building Community
Through Writing and Art
$1200
$250 to Wayne County Public
Library, Goldsboro
John Beck: Southern
Cooking High and Low
$619
Road Scholar William McNeill thinks outside the frame with
“The Astonishing Life of Whistler’s Mother.”
Wilkes County
$250 to Wilkes County Public
Library, North Wilkesboro
Doug Butler: Tiebele to
Timbuktu — West Africa’s
Tribal Cultures $455
N C C onversations
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Teac h ers
Institute
Appalachian Voices — The 2010
Teachers Institute Summer Seminar
“Voices still speak across these hills.” ~ Teachers Institute Participant
Using history, folklore, literature, film, and other expressions
of culture, thirty-eight teachers
addressed issues of diversity and
identity in gender, race, ethnicity, and
class in Appalachia’s rich culture. The
Appalachian mountains, where the
Cherokee and their ancestors have
dwelled for thousands of years, is also
the place where diverse peoples from
around the globe have met to trade,
to practice their music and art, and to
share their stories.
Meeting at the Paul and Florence
Thomas Art School in Glendale
Springs, June 20–26, teachers heard
many voices of Appalachia — past
and present — and explored ways in
which place defines personal identity. Such voices included those of
luthier Wayne Henderson, community
advocate Ann Woodford, Cherokee
language teacher Laura Pinnix, author
Fred Chappell, and storyteller Orville
Hicks. From intensive classroom study
to tours of Doughton Park on the Blue
Ridge Parkway and an Ashe County
Christmas tree farm, participants were
immersed in Appalachian culture.
The lead academic scholars for this
seminar were Dr. Patricia Beaver,
director of the Center for Appalachian
Studies and Dr. Sandra L. Ballard, editor of the Appalachian Journal, both
of Appalachian State University, and
Dr. John Inscoe, professor of history
at the University of Georgia. Ms. Jane
Lonon, director of the Ashe County
Arts Council and a trustee of the
Florence Art School, was an integral
part of the planning for this seminar.
One seminar participant highlighted
this seminar as “the richest professional development seminar in my
years of teaching, addressing issues
of history, philosophy, morality, art,
culture, and the environment in ways
that made me expand my criteria for
teaching in the classroom and challenged my own perceptions of the
world and ‘what I thought I knew.’”
Seminar participants learn about the Christmas tree industry from Dale Hudler, owner of Hudler
Carolina Tree Farms in Ashe County.
(L–R) Evon Barnes, high school
English teacher, Chapel Hill; Fred
Chappell, North Carolina author;
Wayne Henderson, luthier; 2010
TI Summer Seminar participants;
Drs. Sandra Ballard, Patricia
Beaver, and John Inscoe, Lead
Scholars; Ann Woodford, community advocate; Orville Hicks,
Appalachian storyteller.
Searching for the Real
Thing in American Music
October 15–16, 2010
Mars Hill
Educators from around the state will
join lead scholar Dr. Benjamin Filene
(Director of Public History, UNC
Greensboro) at Mars Hill College for a
Teachers Institute seminar on October
15–16, 2010. Searching for the Real
Thing in American Music explores how
the stories we tell ourselves about
American music — and the values we
attribute to certain sounds and singers
— reveal us as people. Teachers
attending also will review the music
collection of Bascom Lamar Lunsford
in the Southern Appalachian Archives.
The seminar is held in conjunction
with Museum on Main Street’s New
Harmonies: Celebrating American
Roots Music, a traveling exhibition
from the Smithsonian Institution in
collaboration with the North Carolina
Humanities Council.
Appalachian Voices ~ Affirming a Sense of Place
Jessica Harrell, a second-grade language arts teacher in Gates County, wrote the
following poem as a reflection on place and identity during the week of study at
the 2010 Teachers Institute Summer Seminar Appalachian Voices. Harrell’s poem
follows the structure of “Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyon, a writer from
the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky. Lyon’s poem can be found in her book
Where I’m From, Where Poems Come From and may also be viewed at
www.georgeellalyon.com along with her suggestions for further writing.
Reflection
I am from piano keys, bible verses, and written words.
I am from cotton seeds, corn husks, and choppin’ weeds with a hoe.
I am from hydrangeas, crepe myrtles, dogwoods, and gardenias in the garden.
I’m from fried chicken, homemade biscuits, sweet pickles, and blueberry yum-yum.
I’m from the Chowan River, Ahoskie, and Sunbury in Gates.
I’m from "Go on and get yourself some more" and "You are my sweet girl." I’m from
"What a Friend We Have in Jesus" and "It Is Well With My Soul."
From "Humble our hearts and make us truly thankful
for all the blessings we have received"
From the ground bees that stung Grandpa on the tractor
and chased him to the house and the glasses he lost along the way
I am from homemade jelly, jams, and relishes, china cabinets, and patchwork quilts.
I am the sandy haired river girl, barefoot picking berries
staying close to home like daffodils branching from a bulb
and blooming every spring.
~ Jessica Harrell
N C C onversations
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AlumNews
Diana Betts received her Master’s
degree in Reading Education from
East Carolina University in May 2010.
She also completed her Academically
& Intellectually Gifted licensure in
June of 2010.
Nonya Brown Chesney’s article
“Discovering Volponi” was published
in the May/June 2010 issue of Library
Media Connection magazine,
Volume 28, 6th edition.
Kevin Clary attended the National
Landmark Workshop Not Just a
Scenic Road: The Blue Ridge Parkway
and its History at Appalachian
State University. The July 4–10
seminar was directed by Professor
Neva Specht, who is also a North
Carolina Humanities Council trustee.
Clary also participated in the 2010
Teachers Institute Summer Seminar
Appalachian Voices. In addition, he
has been selected for training in the
NC Department of Public Instruction’s
21st Century Learning Skills: The Big
6 Research Process, which will focus
on integrating technology research
skills into curriculum instruction.
Caroline Cordell, a participant in
the 2010 Teachers Institute Summer
Seminar, also attended the National
Landmarks of History workshop
Not Just a Scenic Road: The Blue
Ridge Parkway and its History at
Appalachian State University. Cordell
celebrated the Fourth of July in
Southport, North Carolina, where she
was sworn in as a United States citizen. A native of England, she moved
to the U.S. in 1991.
TI ALUMS: Share your professional
news. Send information to
[email protected].
34
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TI alumna Mary Kent Whitaker, an English teacher at Watauga High School, was named Watauga
County Schools Teacher of the Year for 2010–11. Whitaker attributes this honor to the hard work and
enthusiasm of her students. Photo by Peter Morris, courtesy of High County Press.
Nikki Covington is working in a
new capacity with Richmond County
Schools as the Gifted Education
Specialist for Rockingham and Ellerbe
Middle Schools. She has also been
accepted for a North Carolina Center
for the Advancement of Teaching
seminar Teaching the Holocaust:
Resources and Reflections to be held
November 14–19 in Washington, DC.
Mary Jo Edwards attended a weeklong summer workshop based on
a Teacher Academy module for
implementing Professional Learning
Communities (PLC). The workshop, sponsored by Carteret County
Schools, was held at Croatan High
School June 21–25.
Brenda Johnson taught Local
Sculptures as a Healing Art, an online
course about integrating the cultural
arts into the classroom for the UNC
Wilmington’s Watson School of
Education. For the course Johnson
drew on what she learned at the
October 2009 weekend Teachers
Institute seminar The Segregated
South through Autobiography,
1890s–1960s, during which participants visited the 1898 Memorial
monument commemorating the
Wilmington race riots.
Lynne McNeil participated in a
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American
History summer seminar on John
and Abigail Adams held at Amherst
College in Amherst, Massachusetts,
from July 25–31.
Theresa P. Pierce received a Master’s
Degree in Education from Catawba
College in May 2010.
Debbie Russell earned a Master’s
Degree in History at UNC Greensboro
in May 2010 and has begun the
Ph.D. program in American History
at UNCG. She was awarded a teaching assistantship and the Greensboro
Graduate Scholarship for the next
three years.
Amanda Smith participated in
a National Endowment for the
Humanities Landmark seminar
Peoples of the Mesa Verde Region.
For three weeks in July, Smith and
twenty-four other teachers received
scholarships to study Southwest
Native American culture. They visited
key archaeological sites in the area
and participated in Crow Canyon’s
on-going education program. At
the end of the summer, Smith also
attended the Gilder Lehrman Institute
seminar Women’s Rights in the
United States at Duke University. She
has begun work at NC State in the
Masters in Public History Program.
Mary Kent Whitaker was selected
as the Watauga High School Teacher
of the Year and was later named the
Watauga County Schools Teacher of
the Year for 2010–11.
Teachers Institute Alum Collects Oral Histories for Project
on Southern Textile Culture
Kelly Wheeler’s participation in two 2009 Teachers Institute seminars heightened her interest in North Carolina’s textile
history, and now the Scotland County Schools art teacher, with the help of the Richmond County Daily Journal, is conducting research for a book on the rich history of mills and millworkers in her native Richmond County. Wheeler can
be contacted at [email protected].
A s a young ch i ld growing
up in the South, I knew my surroundings were built on the backs
of hard working men and women
such as my grandparents. Had it not
been for their struggle, humility, and
grace in creating a work ethic that
depended on the ambitions of the
family and the culture in which the
family thrived, my town would not
have survived. I never imagined that
the quality of life in their time was
directly relative to the quality of my
life in the present.
My small hometown of Rockingham,
North Carolina, and the surrounding
area once housed over thirty working mills. From steel to lumber, from
hosiery to yarn, we survived. About
twenty years ago, life for this town
changed as the textile mills and other
factories began to disappear.
It was not until my study with the
Teachers Institute that I began to
consider that life might once have
been different from what remained
in the kudzu-covered empty mill
Through the professional
seminars of the Teachers
Institute, I began to see
myself in the very fabric
of Southern mill history.
villages that haunt my town today.
Through the professional seminars
of the Teachers Institute, I began
to see myself in the very fabric of
Southern mill history. These seminars
provided a dynamic venue that not
only showcased the state’s textile history but also encouraged participating teachers to share that knowledge
with our students.
The seminars changed my focus as
a visual arts educator. My classroom
studio was transformed into a mill
store and the walls were mounted
with photography and imagery
reminiscent of the Southern mill
culture of the 1800s-1900s. Many of
my students have grandparents who
worked in the mills; some of their
parents work in the few that remain.
They began to understand that textiles do not just appear by chance in
Wal-Mart but rather from the hard
work and struggles of their families’
experiences.
As I watched my students experience
their "ah ha" moments, I had one of
my own. Having relocated several
years before into an apartment in a
renovated yarn mill, I realized how
little I knew about the experiences
of the people who once worked in
the very space where I now lived.
I wanted to know more, to provide
my town with a working history of
its past. I first approached my local
paper in an effort to open this opportunity to all persons who had a connection to the mills in the area and
am now pursuing the compilation
and printing of a book containing a
N C C onversations
Kelly Wheeler, a visual arts teacher in
Scotland County, displays a textile square
designed at a Teachers Institute seminar.
record of the many stories that reside
mostly in the minds of those who
worked in the mills and lived in the
mill villages.
And so my journey continues to provide the people who built this town
with a chance to tell their stories and
to teach us about community, hard
work, struggle, and create a lasting
record of their legacy.
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35
M useum o n
M ai n S t ree t
Reflections on New Harmonies
The Debut of New Harmonies
Matthew J. Edwards, Executive
Director, Mount Airy Museum of
Regional History
T he Mou nt A iry Mu seu m
of Regional History had the honor
of being selected as the inaugural
site for the 2010 North Carolina
tour of the Smithsonian Institution
traveling exhibition New Harmonies:
Celebrating American Roots Music,
beginning in March 2010. The
museum was the first site to host a
Museum on Main Street exhibition in
North Carolina.
Among those speaking at the opening
festivities were U.S. Senator Richard
Burr, U.S. Congresswoman Virginia
Foxx, and Linda Carlisle, Secretary
of the North Carolina Department of
Cultural Resources.
The six-week exhibition period was
a whirlwind of activity for the staff
and volunteers of the Mount Airy
Museum of Regional History. With
well over two dozen community
outreach programs and events scheduled, there was never a dull moment.
In the end, the numbers speak for
themselves. The museum hosted
nearly 5,000 on-site visitors during
the exhibition, a 200% increase over
the previous year, and gained unprecedented exposure through media
coverage throughout the Piedmont.
While the increases in visitors and
visibility are certainly indicative of
a successful exhibition, responses to
New Harmonies are the best gauge of
its true success. It’s hard to quantify
a smile or conversations prompted
by a certain piece of music or an
album cover from long ago, but those
visceral feelings are what drive the
overall success of this exhibition.
Visitors to New Harmonies in Mount
Airy wanted to share their stories and
their memories as they experienced
the exhibition. Making those connections is a true measure of success.
Back-Step performs at the grand opening of New Harmonies in Mount Airy.
Lyrics etched on wood found in the Appalachian Archives at Mars Hill College.
Our State is proud to be the Statewide Media
Partner for New Harmonies: Celebrating
American Roots Music, a Smithsonian
Institution Exhibition presented by the
North Carolina Humanities Council.
Emily Shaw, Librarian, Warren
Dignitaries at the opening ceremony
included U.S. Representative G.K.
Butterfield, and North Carolina
General Assembly members Doug
Berger and Floyd McKissick, Jr.
State Representative Michael Wray,
who was unable to attend, sent a
The best part of the day was seeing so many members of the Warren
County community turn out to
support New Harmonies. For many,
seeing the exhibition brought back
fond memories of attending dances
at a now defunct dance hall and
listening to live music at some of the
small clubs and juke joints that were
once scattered across the county.
For others, it was exciting to see the
Smithsonian Institution in Warrenton.
Walking through the exhibition, I was
delighted to hear so many visitors
recollecting musicians they hadn’t
thought about in years and discovering new ones, all the while reminiscing about the role of music in their
lives.
NORTH CAROLINA
AU G U S T 2 010 $4 .95
Sweet Tea
Red clay, front porches, the banjo, longleaf pines,
and our Southern roots in North Carolina
4th Annual Reader
Photo Contest Winners
page 82
August 2010
On a swelt eri ng Satu r day
afternoon, Warrenton officially
opened New Harmonies: Celebrating
American Roots Music with a banjo
string-cutting on the grounds of the
Warren County Memorial Library.
Despite the heat and despite a host
of other events scheduled in Warren
County that May day, we had great
attendance.
Our State
®
DOWN
HOME
IN
Southern Roots Issue
County Memorial Library
congratulatory letter. Other speakers included Valeria Lee, cofounder
of the legendary public radio station WVSP 90.9 FM, and folklorist
Michael Taylor, who spent six months
conducting oral histories with
the musicians of Warren County.
Between speakers, local musicians
performed, including Alan Reid and
Friends (bluegrass), Mandolin Orange
(folk), Joe “B” Cutchins, Jr. (blues),
and the Bullock Family Gospel
Singers.
Our State magazine
New Harmonies May
Opening in Warren County
If you like North Carolina,
you’ll love Our State.
ourstate.com
NEW HARMONIES
Celebrating American
Roots Music
New Harmonies opened on March 13
at Mount Airy’s Museum of Regional
History and after a six-week stay,
opened at the Warren County Memorial
Library. Elizabeth City’s Museum of the
Albemarle welcomed the exhibit on
June 19. Next stops on the tour are
Growing up in a rural town, I would
never imagine that something as prestigious as a Smithsonian Institution
exhibition would come anywhere
close to home. The fact that this exhibition not only came to Warrenton,
but was designed for small rural areas
is what, in my opinion, makes New
Harmonies special.
Goldsboro
August 7 – September 18
Arts Council of Wayne County
Mars Hill
September 25 – November 6
Weizenblatt Gallery, Moore Auditorium,
Mars Hill College
Shelby
November 13 – December 29
Don Gibson Theatre
Darius Witherspoon, New Harmonies
docent, prepares to lead visitors through the
Warrenton exhibition.
N C C onversations
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Tone and Timbre: The Warrenton Echoes Gospel Quartet
Michael Taylor
A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s
Curriculum in Folklore, folklorist and field recordist Michael
Taylor collected over forty hours of audio recordings in his sixmonth oral history of the music makers in Warren County. Here,
in a segment from those interviews, the Warrenton Echoes,
who performed as part of the New Harmonies Armory Musical
Sampler, remember their beginnings.
M y best wor k as a folklorist occurs in the realm of memory.
This may sound arcane, so consider
it thusly: It is the year 2010 — in the
springtime — and I am sitting in a
climate-controlled meeting room at
the Warren County Memorial Library
with the Warrenton Echoes, a musical group with deep roots in the
African American gospel tradition of
the upper south. We are seated at a
long black table under fluorescent
lights; I have a stereo pair of microphones pointed at the Echoes. This
is the modern age.
In this room in this modern age,
there is no plow dust, no cotton or
tobacco, no hot sun on our necks;
but these things made the Echoes,
so how to access them? That is our
job here.
phrasing, tone, and timbre, as Mr.
Foster transports us back to a time
when he worked the land from
the dark of morning until the dark
of night. It is 1957, the year that
Warrenton Echoes started singing
together.
It started out when we were farming. James Harris made a guitar
out of haywire, and when we’d
break for lunch, we would go to
his house and sit on the porch,
before it was time to go back to
work, and play. That’s how he
learned how to play — with haywire. We didn’t have any money
— we didn’t have enough money
to buy a guitar. So we took it
from that.
Memory is one way, and we interface
memory with talk. We begin haltingly, awkwardly — how does this
story go, and how do we tell it? I ask,
“When you first began, was it
a quartet-style group?”
Roy “June” Foster, the founder of the
group, ponders the question. He puts
his chin in his hand and is quiet for
a moment. His eyes look far away.
“It was a quartet, yeah,” he answers.
“And we gradually started adding
instruments to the group.” More
silence. He is remembering. Then Mr.
Foster begins again, and the wheels
begin to roll. Watch, now, how the
contours of the conversation change.
Regard the rhythm and syntax, the
38
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A lot of songs from that
era were actually songs
about working in fields,
and cutting wood, and
pulling wood home with
mules and wagons....
That’s where they
originated from — out of
the fields.
— Julian Smith, Jr.
James Carter, known to the younger
members of the Echoes as “Chief,”
is another founder of the group. He
sits directly to my left, and nods in
remembrance as Mr. Foster speaks.
I turn to him — he seems as though
he has something to say — and he
speaks so quietly in memory that I
have to place the microphone practically at his mouth. “Yeah,” he begins.
“I heard them sing a few times and
I said, ‘That’s the group I want to
be with.’”
“How did you go about joining up?”
I ask.
“Well, they asked me,” he explains:
They came to ask me, and I was
glad to sing, because I wanted to
sing with them anyway. I used to
sing behind the mule in the fields.
I’d get happy singing behind that
mule. There used to be a group
that came on the radio every day
— the Selah Jubilee Singers. My
daddy used to fuss at me all the
time because I’d stop the muling
and go to the house to listen to
the radio.
The Warrenton Echoes are celebrated
internationally as one of the finest
gospel groups that North Carolina
has to offer, and they keep a busy
schedule singing on gospel programs
all over the country. They communicate by cell phone; they book gigs
by email. But the Warrenton Echoes
were born in the tobacco and cotton
fields surrounding Warren County.
(L–R): Roy “June” Foster, Julian Smith, Jr., James Martin, Jr., Previs Foster, Reginald Allen, and
James Carter. Photo by Michael Taylor.
These fields, where the four original
Echoes would gather during their
lunch breaks to learn their craft more
than fifty years ago, are the soul of
the group. With memory, Roy “June”
Foster and James Carter offer us
these fields, this soil from which the
Warrenton Echoes grew.
Reginald Allen performing at the New
Harmonies Armory Musical Sampler.
Someone pats his foot; another snaps
his fingers. The whole group joins
in on the choruses. They are singing
“Standing on the Promises of God,”
and it is an ancient sound, and so
heartbreakingly beautiful it makes
me want to cry. We are on a porch
overlooking a long field of tobacco; it
is shady here, but the sun is very hot.
And then Mr. Carter begins to sing
— alone at first, and very quietly.
Museum on Main Street’s Journey Stories to Travel North Carolina in 2012
Each of us has a powerful story deep in our personal heritage. It may be a story of a family uprooting
itself in order to stay together, or of sons and daughters moving to another land, or of a distant ancestor coming to America. Immigration and travel — over roads, rails, rivers, trails, and skyways — shaped
American society. Journey Stories examines how transportation and migration helped build our nation
and how our mobile world looked to travelers along the way.
Coming to America was often a one-way trip, leaving friends, extended families, and familiar surroundings behind, never to be
seen again. All travelers, whether coming to these shores by choice or force, showed their courage in withstanding the difficulties of the journey.
For more information on Journey Stories, or to see how your organization can apply to host the exhibit, contact Darrell Stover,
Statewide Coordinator of MoMS, at [email protected] or (336) 334-5723.
N C C onversations
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39
From the
fiel d
Peaceful Heroes
Harlan Joel Gradin
In 1 8 8 0 Inspector Frank Newcombe
of the recently formed U.S. Life
Saving Service (LSS) recommended
to Superintendent Sumner Kimball in
Washington, DC, that a new keeper
be appointed for Life Saving Station
Number 17 on Pea Island, North
Carolina. Newcombe wrote,
Richard [Etheridge] is 38 years…
has the reputation of being as good
a surfman as there is on this coast,
black or white, can read and write
intelligently, and bears a good
name as a man among men with
whom he has associated during
his life....Taking him in all, he
seems to be a superior man for the
position.
Etheridge was African American,
and although this former slave
made a distinguished contribution
as a sergeant in the Union army
and served as a Buffalo Soldier in
Texas and a leader in the Roanoke
Island Freedmen’s Colony before it
was dissolved, his race gave both
Newcombe and Kimball some pause
before they made their final decision.
In spite of the potential antagonism
that might follow the appointment of
the first black LSS keeper, they were
convinced that his focus, military
discipline, and unsurpassed ability as a surfman made him the best
choice to help renew what had been
a failing assemblage of inappropriate
LSS crews serving North Carolina’s
coastal waters.
Newcombe and Kimball went against
the grain in a post-Reconstruction
South when African Americans were
already losing their gains as free
citizens after the war in which they
had fought for their own liberation.
Disfranchisement, the emergence
of Jim Crow laws — both cultural
Keeper Richard Etheridge. Detail from Pea
Island Lifesaving Crew by James Melvin.
Courtesy of North Carolina Aquarium on
Roanoke Island and with permission of
Melvin’s Studio, www.melvinsstudio.com.
and legal — and the ultimate rise
of the white supremacist movement
provided the larger context in which
Etheridge would be challenged to
make the LSS more than the “farce”
the nation perceived it to be as crews
lost hundreds of mariners and countless dollars worth of cargo during the
1870s.
In Fire on the Beach: Recovering the
Lost Story of Richard Etheridge and
the Pea Island Lifesavers (Scribner’s,
2000; Oxford, 2001), authors David
Wright and David Zoby observe that
during an era when African
Americans were invisible, mostly
despised but always misunderstood by a larger society raging
about the ‘place’ of blacks within
it, Etheridge was a beacon. He
resisted this dehumanization,
thrived when forces conspired to
limit him.
Etheridge and his all-African
American crew of surfman would distinguish the Pea Island Station as one
of the best lifesaving stations along
the eastern coast of the United States.
The story of Etheridge and his crew
has most recently been retold in
the documentary film Rescue Men,
produced by Allan R. Jones of
Dreamquest Productions. Wright
and Zoby served as co-producers.
On February 27, 2010, Rescue Men
debuted to a crowd of over 250 at
the Indoor Theatre at Roanoke Island
Festival Park. Hosted by the Outer
Banks History Center, the film was
supported by the Chicamacomico
Life Saving Station Historical Site,
the National Park Service’s Outer
Banks Group, the Outer Banks
Community Foundation, the Pea
Island Lifesavers Museum, the North
Carolina Aquarium, the Outer Banks
Visitors Bureau, and local residents
throughout the area. Following the
film, a panel discussion included
participation by the filmmaker, scholars, a descendent of an original Pea
Island surfman, and Rear Admiral
Stephen W. Rochon, Retired, U.S.
Coast Guard and now chief usher at
the White House. Rochon explained,
“Pea Island is not just black history;
it’s not just about black lifesavers’
impact on other African Americans in
the Coast Guard. It is American history and regardless of color or race or
religion or ethnicity, there’s a message there for everyone.”
Known as “the Graveyard of the
Atlantic,” the geography of North
Carolina’s coast, especially how
its Outer Banks islands jut into the
ocean, make it a frequent pathway
of storms and hurricanes. With
The Pea Island crew, 1896. Richard Etheridge stands far left. Beside him, from left: Benjamin Bowser,
Lewis Wescott, Dormon Pugh, Theodore Meekins, Stanley Wise, and William Irving. Courtesy Outer
Banks History Center.
treacherous conditions always stirring in the Atlantic, the importance
of lifesavers in the nineteenth century could not be more important. As
Wright and Zoby explain, the role of
lifesavers, known as surfmen, was
defined by a
maritime tradition of nightly
watches, rotating duty, and adherence to strict codes....A system of
coded flags allowed surfmen to
communicate with passing ships
— [relaying] important information from shore — such as latitude
and longitude coordinates and
storm warnings.
The job was rough; the men were
isolated.
The LSS was formed in 1871 as
a branch of the Revenue Marine
Service of the Treasury Department.
By 1874, seven stations existed
N C C onversations
along North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
Appointed by a government inspector, the chief surfman was the
“keeper,” also known as “Cap’n.”
He had full authority to hire and
train the crew of six surfmen and
substitutes.
Pea Island is not just black
history; it’s not just about black
lifesavers’ impact on other
African Americans in the Coast
Guard. It is American history
and regardless of color or race
or religion or ethnicity, there’s a
message there for everyone.
— Stephen W. Rochon
•
Summer
•
Fall 2010
•
41
paradoxes shaped by racism in the
post-war South. In order to allow
black surfmen full rights as crew
members while also retaining able
white crew members, Kimball and
Newcombe determined to keep all
crews segregated. Since Pea Island
Station 17 was the only one that had
African American surfmen, it meant
there was no future for promotion
until someone left or died.
“Drill and Exercise in the Surf-Boat,” from Scribner’s Monthly, January 1880. Courtesy Fielding Tyler.
Surfmen faced overwhelming challenges: the stations were spaced
every twelve miles, making the distance too far to patrol effectively and
permit lifesavers to be reliable, timely,
and able. Perhaps more important,
though, was the system of hiring
surfmen, one rife with nepotism and
cronyism. Indeed, the corruption
was problematic enough that in 1875
Superintendent Kimball authorized an
official inspection and report of North
Carolina stations. The final report was
clear: Outer Banks stations were failing because of “petty local politicians
whose aim it was to subordinate
the service for their own personal
ends…without slightest respect to
use or competency.” The stations’
reputations were further diminished
by the terrific loss of life in huge
shipwrecks in 1877 and 1878 — a
disaster for which lifesaving crews
clearly were culpable of negligence.
An obvious step toward improving
the dismal record of these stations
was to root out personnel problems.
Superintendent Kimball and Inspector
Newcombe turned to the former slave
and soldier Etheridge.
Etheridge was part of a “checkerboard” crew which included both
42
•
black and white surfmen. African
Americans, however, were relegated
to the lowest positions. Despite his
superior skill, Etheridge began as the
sixth surfman at his station and was
responsible for domestic and cooking duties for the entire crew. Once
Etheridge was appointed keeper of
Pea Island Station 17, white surfmen
refused to serve under him. In turn,
Etheridge hired his own all-black
crew. “Depending on who was asked
along the Banks,” note Wright and
Zoby, “Richard Etheridge and his
‘colored crew’ were a curiosity, a
lark, or an outrage.” Yet, the all-black
crew under Etheridge’s leadership
proved themselves with remarkable
careers. They saved over two hundred mariners, losing only thirteen,
and conducted the spectacular
operation of 1898 in which they rescued the entire crew of the steamer
Newman. As historian Dr. Patricia
C. Click noted at the film’s debut,
“drowning people did not care if the
hand that reached out to save them
was black or white.”
The autonomy of African Americans
to be full members of a lifesaving
crew, however, had a double edge
and reflected the complex social
In 1915 the LSS and the Revenue
Cutter Service merged to become the
U.S. Coast Guard. As the technology and size of ships became more
sophisticated and significantly larger,
there was less need for lifesaving
crews. The stations were decommissioned in 1947.
Remarkably, among the many medals
awarded to LSS surfmen during this
whole period, none were granted to
African Americans. James Charlet,
site manager at the Chicamacomico
Life Saving Historic Site, says, “They
considered themselves average
folks, but they certainly were the
Fire on the Beach: Recovering the Lost Story of
Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers
by David Wright and David Zoby.
embodiment of every positive role
model that you can think of. And yet
America has forgotten these peaceful
heroes.”
Indeed, until the work of Wright
and Zoby, theirs was an unheralded
story. Subsequent to their research
and as a result of the lobbying of
one teenage girl from Washington,
North Carolina, who was moved by
the story of these uncelebrated men
to write her senator and request
appropriate recognition, the Pea
Island surfmen in 1996 posthumously
received the Coast Guard’s highest
honor, the Gold-Life Saving Medal.
(L–R) David Zoby, David Wright, and Allan R. Smith at the film debut of Rescue Men
on February 27, 2010, at Roanoke Island Festival Park.
Rescue Men Project Arc: 1981–2010
Harlan Joel Gradin
“ You never know what the
long-term impact of a North Carolina
Humanities Council grant will be,”
wrote Dr. Patricia C. Click in her evaluation of the program accompanying
the premiere of the film Rescue Men
at Roanoke Island Festival Park in
February 2010. An associate professor
of history emeritus at the University
of Virginia, Click knows well how
the documentary brought full circle
a series of projects that began with
a modest Humanities Council grant
to the Town of Manteo nearly thirty
years ago.
In 1981 the North Carolina
Humanities Council funded the
project Roanoke Island Humanities
Series in celebration of the Town of
Manteo’s 400th anniversary of the
settlement of Roanoke Island. Of particular interest for program planners
was the role of Civil War era African
Americans in settling the area. Click,
the project’s scholar-in-residence,
began an essay that eventually
became the beginning of her highly
regarded Time Full of Trial: The
Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony,
1862–1867 (UNC Press, 2001). Click’s
research helped the town envision
its history in more expansive and
inclusive ways.
Click continued her work on the
Roanoke Island’s freedman’s colony,
as David Wright and David Zoby,
two graduate students in the M.F.A
program at Virginia Commonwealth
University (VCU), were encouraged
by their professor, Maurice Duke, to
pursue the story of the all-black Pea
Island lifesaving crew. In 1993, the
Humanities Council awarded Wright
and Zoby a “start-up grant” to investigate the heretofore untold stories
of Keeper Richard Etheridge and
his crew.
In 1994 another North Carolina
Humanities Council grant allowed
Wright and Zoby to extend their
project with a slide-presentation
N C C onversations
offered to various Outer Banks sites.
Fourteen-year-old Kathie Burkhart
left one of those presentations
determined to find a way to honor
the unsung heroes of Pea Island. She
petitioned her senator to award the
Pea Island crew a posthumous Gold
Life-Saving Medal in 1996. A third
grant from the Humanities Council
enabled Wright, Zoby, and producer
Allan R. Smith to complete Rescue
Men and debut the film on the Outer
Banks in February 2010.
A strength of Humanities Council
support for a project like Rescue Men
is the long-term investment of exploring and celebrating the culture and
history of a community such as the
Outer Banks. This arc of engagement
with project participants and communities deepens both a personal
and collective consciousness of how
important they are in making their
own history and leads to an enduring
impact.
•
Summer
•
Fall 2010
•
43
North
C ar o li n a
H U ma n i t ies
c o u n cil
Humanities Council Trustees
D uring its J u ne meeting,
the North Carolina Humanities
Council trustees reelected six current
trustees to serve a second threeyear term. Beginning their second
appointments in October are Porter
Durham (Mecklenburg County),
Townsend Ludington (Orange),
Miranda Monroe (Cumberland),
Jim Preston (Mecklenburg), Greg
Richardson (Wake), and Richard
Shramm (Orange). The trustees
also elected Magdalena Maiz-Peña
(Mecklenburg) to begin a term of service as a new Council trustee. MaizPeña is the William H. Williamson
Professor of Spanish and chair of
the Spanish Department at Davidson
College where she is deeply committed to humanities scholarship.
For over twenty years she has been
a bridge-builder across disciplines
at Davidson, connecting literature,
history, and cultural studies. She has
been honored with three teaching
awards and an endowed professorship. Maiz-Peña is also passionate
about connecting humanities themes
with public audiences.
George Stuart of Barnardsville
completes his tenure as a North
Carolina Humanities Council trustee
in October after six years of committed support to the public humanities.
Stuart has served as vice-chair of
the Humanities Council and chair of
the membership committee. Stuart
received his Ph.D. in Anthropology
from the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill in 1975. In 1984
he founded the Center for Maya
Research, a nonprofit organization that helps to promote research
related to the archaeology, iconography, and epigraphy of the ancient
Maya. His writings, both academic
and popular, include more than forty
articles and eight books, among the
latter Palenque: Eternal City of the
Maya, co-authored with his son,
Dr. David Stuart of the University of
Texas at Austin. During nearly forty
years with the National Geographic
Society, he served as the Staff
Archaeologist, as Vice President for
Research and Exploration, as chairman of the Committee for Research
and Exploration, and as Senior
Assistant Editor for Archaeology
at the National Geographic magazine. Stuart has received numerous
national and international awards for
his contributions to knowledge of the
Native American past. He currently
serves as a trustee of Warren Wilson
College, Swannanoa, and advisor to
the ongoing Jamestown Rediscovery
project of the Association for the
Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.
The Stuart Collection of some 13,000
volumes on American archaeology
as well as manuscripts and photographic images is housed in the
Wilson Library at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
where it is readily available for
students, faculty, and the interested
public. Stuart has brought considerable wisdom and expertise to the
Humanities Council during his tenure
as a trustee. The citizens of North
Carolina have been well-served by
his contributions.
George and Melinda Stuart in the Rare Book
Room of UNC Chapel Hill. Photo by Alicia Towler.
B o a r d M e mb e r s
* Gubernatorial Appointee
North Carolina
Humanities Council
New Website Launch
Fall 2010
www.nchumanities.org
Townsend Ludington, Chair
Chapel Hill
*Tom Hanchett
Charlotte
Linda E. Oxendine
Pembroke
*Hephzibah Roskelly,
Vice-Chair
Greensboro
*Glen Anthony Harris
Wilmington
Jim Preston
Mooresville
Cammie R. Hauptfuhrer
Charlotte
Glenis Redmond
Asheville
Reginald F. Hildebrand
Durham
Gregory Richardson
Raleigh
*Jonathan Howes
Chapel Hill
Richard R. Schramm
Carrboro
*Carol Lawrence
Asheville
Neva J. Specht
Boone
Timothy A. Minor
Greensboro
George E. Stuart
Barnardsville
Miranda Monroe
Fayetteville
L. McKay Whatley, Jr.
Franklinville
Cynthia Brodhead
Durham
Robert S. Brunk
Asheville
Joseph Porter Durham, Jr.
Charlotte
Donald Ensley
Greenville
Calvin L. Hall
Banner Elk
North Carolina Humanities
Council Mission Statement
and Core Values
Council serves as an advocate for
lifelong learning and thoughtful
dialogue about all facets of human
life. It facilitates the exploration and
celebration of the many voices and
stories of North Carolina’s cultures
and heritage.
Council is committed to
• an interdisciplinary approach
to the humanities
• dialogue
• discovery and understanding
of the humanities — culture,
identity, and history
• respect for individual community
members and community values
• humanities scholarship and
scholars to develop humanities
perspectives
• cultural diversity and
inclusiveness
• informed and active citizenship
as an outgrowth of new awareness of self and community.
A D V I S ORY B O A R D
John Medlin, Chair,
and Polly Medlin
Winston-Salem
Ed and Mary Martin Borden
Goldsboro
Herb and Frannie Browne
Charlotte
Paul and Jean Carr
Raleigh
Hodding Carter and
Patt Derian
Chapel Hill
Bob and Peggy Culbertson
Charlotte
Larry and Sarah Dagenhart
Charlotte
Patsy Davis
Pittsboro
Roddey and Pepper Dowd
Charlotte
Bob Eaves
Raleigh
Robert and Mary Ann
Eubanks
Chapel Hill
Murphy Evans
Raleigh
Jim and Judy Exum
Greensboro
Bill and Marcie Ferris
Chapel Hill
Henry and Shirley Frye
Greensboro
Donald and Deborah Reaves
Winston-Salem
Harvey and Cindy Gantt
Charlotte
Tom and Susan Ross
Davidson
Frank and Jane Hanes
Winston-Salem
David and Jenny Routh
Chapel Hill
Luther and Cheray Hodges
Chapel Hill
Mike and Debbie Rubin
Winston-Salem
Jim and Mary Joseph
Durham
Mary D. B. T. Semans
Durham
Tom and Donna Lambeth
Winston-Salem
Lanty and Margaret Smith
Raleigh
John and Grace McKinnon
Winston-Salem
Sherwood and Eve Smith
Raleigh
John and Leigh McNairy
Kinston
Wade and Ann Smith
Raleigh
Assad and Emily Meymandi
Raleigh
Sam and Mary Starling
Raleigh
Paul and Martha Michaels
Raleigh
Jack and Cissie Stevens
Asheville
Bill and Sandra Moore
Chapel Hill
Jeanne Tannenbaum
Greensboro
Thrus and Patty Morton
Charlotte
David and Libby Ward
New Bern
Paul and Sidna Rizzo
Chapel Hill
Jordy and Ann Whichard
Greenville
Wyndham Robertson
Chapel Hill
Ed and Marylyn Williams
Charlotte
Russ and Sally Dalton
Robinson
Charlotte
Robert and Joan Zimmerman
Charlotte
N C C onversations
•
Summer
•
Fall 2010
•
45
T h e L as t
Word
Poems by Robert Morgan
Soft Mountains
Unlike the Rocky range or sharp
Sierras or Cascades or Alps,
the Appalachian peaks are called
soft mountains in comparison.
Their rounded tops and smoothed-out slopes
are cushioned by leaf-rot and mold,
betray their ancient age, worn down
to knobs and nubs and fuzzy balds
of brush and trees and laurel hells.
But underneath the thicket swirls
and fallen leaves and stingy soil
they’re granite at the core and hard
as any hill in Cappadocia,
the softness only in the face,
deceptive to the look as steel
encased in velvet, hardness at
the heart, while curves are petal-smooth
and quaint and blue as old-time music.
Squirrel Nest
Blue Honey
This wad of trash is only visible
in tree top when the limbs are bare, and then
the ragged cluster stands against the sky.
What looks like rough debris washed up and caught
in forks and branches by a flood, some months
ago, and hidden throughout summer by
the green, was boudoir once, delivery room,
and nursery to a whole new generation
now arcing through the trees in search of nuts
on hickories and acorns with their sharp
hard nipples, birth home now exposed to all
and picked apart by wind’s caress and rain
as hunter’s moon appears as aura back
of this disintegrating mother wreck
that never will be nestled in again.
The honey blue as classic skies
made in some hives along the coast
of Carolina still remains
a mystery. Some say the tint
derives from berries bees have sipped,
while others claim the sapphire sweet
is made from flowers that grow from roots
in soil containing acid and
aluminum. The azure just
appears on rare occasions, blue
as deepest space and deepest mood,
a plangent note, aristocratic,
from bees’ internal alembic,
those armed and gifted artisans
of taste that give us heaven’s hue
to light the tastebuds cerulean
with syrup of Elysium.
Robert R . M o r gan grew up in Hendersonville, North Carolina, on a farm in the Green River Valley of the
Blue Ridge Mountains. He graduated from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A. in English and
received an M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Since 1971 he has taught at Cornell
University, where he is now Kappa Alpha Professor of English. Morgan has published eleven books of poetry,
including The Strange Attractor: New and Selected Poems, three books of short fiction, five novels, and a collection of essays and interviews on poetry. In addition to his numerous honors and awards, Morgan joins the North
Carolina Literary Hall of Fame in 2010.
N C C onversations
•
Summer
•
Fall 2010
•
47
The Mareslide
Endowments
The long flat rock that drops so steep
down the mountainside above the creek
with winter ice locked on its face
seems some vast cameo encased
in darkened forests. Rumor says
a mare once reached the top and grazed
along the edge on autumn grass.
The rock was wet with slickest moss
and hooves slipped out as though on grease.
With screams the filly kicked in panic
and skidded down the mighty granite
and found no bench or ledge to slow
her plunge into the vale below,
which saw a horse shot from the sky,
a thrashing, neighing meteorite.
But when I heard that sad story
and went to look while still a boy
I wondered why no bones remained.
The story seemed as true as rain.
A detail often pointed out
and never quite explained is how
the families on the Oregon Trail
as sun crashed down or wind slapped dust
in eyes and mouth and oxen strained
and hesitated hour by hour
along the rivers, over hills
and prairie grass, or lightning whipped
the air or hail flew level as
a volley of white musket balls,
so many burned with fever in
the wagon beds, or weakened by
starvation or bad meat, or cup
of poisoned water, diseases passed
along the train, sometimes a raid
at dawn or bite of rattlesnake,
so many died, so many dead,
they quickly buried them in sod.
Atop the makeshift grave they stood
a wooden chair back like a sign.
The question later asked was why:
did chair back symbolize a bit
of culture in the endless wild,
a memory of the life back east?
Or was it more a sign of rest,
of dignity on alien land
after the horrendous journeying?
With rocks so few as well as trees
the chair back may have been the one
substantial thing they had to mark
the site and claim the soil above
the dear deceased, against the wolves
and time’s predation, while they
must labor on, but leave behind
an artifact of comfort and
familiarity to keep
the vigil as a monument
on earth they’d never see again.
48
•
Mound Builders
The Creeks of frontier Georgia said
they made the mounds along the streams
for sanctuaries during floods.
When rivers spread across the plain
they climbed atop the fashioned hills
until the inundation passed.
But later studies would reveal
the elevations packed with bones
and grave goods: spears and arrowheads,
ceramics, gems, totemic signs,
and favorite beads. It seems the Creeks
deposited their kin, their loved,
in ceremonial heaps that took
a dozen generations to
attain the height desired. They may
have sought a refuge from the floods
on those acclivities. But what
they stood atop and slept atop
for safety was the sacred dirt
and relics of their clan, the signs
and symbols of their hearth, beliefs
and arts and holy bundles too,
as all of us rely, and must,
on our traditions and the deep
ancestral memories and ways
to bear us up and get us through
the deadly and uncertain days,
sustaining breath and sight and hope
on residue and legacy,
of those beloved who came before,
and watch us from the glittering stars.
Events
and
Dea d li n es
Large Grants
For projects beginning after July 15 and December 15
• Draft proposals are due March 15 and August 15
• Final proposals are due April 15 and September 15
Mini-Grants
Mini-grant applications must arrive at the Humanities Council office by the
first day of the month and must be submitted at least eight weeks in advance
of the program.
Planning Grants
There is no deadline for a planning grant.
Road Scholars
Road Scholars applications must be submitted at least eight weeks in advance
of the requested program.
Let’s Talk About It applications must be submitted at least eight weeks
in advance of the requested program.
Council Trustees Meetings
• September 11, 2010
• November 12, 2010
• February 19, 2011
• June 3, 2011
Museum on Main Street — New Harmonies: Celebrating Roots Music
• August 7–September 18, 2010, Arts Council of Wayne County, Goldsboro
• September 25–November 6, 2010, Weizenblatt Gallery, Moore Auditorium,
Mars Hill College
• November 13–December 13, 2010, Don Gibson Theatre, Shelby
Teachers Institute
• October 15–16, 2010, Searching for the Real Thing in American Music,
Liston B. Ramsey Center for Regional Studies, Mars Hill College
John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities
• October 8, 2010, 7–9 p.m., School of Music Recital Hall, UNC Greensboro
N C C onversations
•
Summer
•
Fall 2010
•
49
NONPROFIT
ORGANIZATION
US POSTAGE PAID
GREENSBORO, NC
PERMIT NO. 705
MANY
STORIES,
ONE PEOPLE
North
Carolina
Humanities
Council
122 North Elm Street, Suite 601
Greensboro, NC 27401
2010
S ummer
•
F all
w w w. n c h u m a n i t i e s . o r g
N
The North Carolina Humanities Council serves as an advocate for lifelong
learning and thoughtful dialogue about all facets of human life. It facilitates the exploration and celebration of the many voices and stories of
North Carolina’s cultures and heritage. The North Carolina Humanities
MANY STORIES, ONE PEOPLE
o
r
t
h
C
Council is a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment
for the Humanities.
a
r
o
l
i
n
a
CONVERSATIONS

North Carolina Conversations Summer

Transcription

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